


Maps

by StarskyandSuch



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Love, Case Fic, Childhood Memories, Elijah Kamski & Gavin Reed are Siblings, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, how many ways can I hurt kamski, no beta we die like men, the Chloes deserved better, the brothers need to hug it out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-01 07:12:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15769155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarskyandSuch/pseuds/StarskyandSuch
Summary: Sure, he’s not the best detective in the precinct, and sometimes having Nines for a partner still catches him off guard a little. But two years after the Revolution, Gavin Reed thinks he’s doing pretty damn well for himself.Then someone tries to kill his brother.





	1. Two Missed Calls

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all. I haven’t published a fic in a few years now, but damn if Detroit hasn’t lit a fire under my ass. A few things you should know:
> 
> 1) it’s gonna get a little dark, folks. Some of DBH’s best characters are the ones we know the least about, so I’m exploring that here. 
> 
> 2) most of this is from Gavin’s point of view, which means he doesn’t always understand Kamski’s motivations, and vice versa. This will lead to misunderstandings and callous language. But ain’t that just like family?
> 
> 3) they say plot is just never letting your characters get what they want. I use that as an excuse to drag everyone through the mud until they cry
> 
> 4) I wanna say I’ll update regularly, but I’m a hot mess. We’ll just see.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I hardly see how a fuckin’ half-brother is pertinent information, Captain.”

**(3:37 AM) - Missed Call**

DOUCHE OF THE CENTURY

**(3:38 AM) - Missed Call**

DOUCHE OF THE CENTURY

Gavin frowns at his phone screen, squinting against the brightness. It’s a quarter to seven, which means he’s officially exhausted all of his available snoozes. If he doesn’t drag his ass out of bed in the next five minutes, he’ll have to scramble to get to work before Lieutenant Jagoff and the Robo Twink get there. Long gone are the days when Gavin could shit on Anderson for rolling into the office at noon, but no way in hell will he let them get a leg up on him now.

Still. Something itches in his mind as he stares at the notifications sitting accusingly in his inbox.

One call is too much whiskey, clumsy fingers. But two...

Blaming the last tendrils of sleep which haven’t let go of his mind yet, Gavin hits redial and holds the phone up to his ear. He waits and waits. He’s about to hang up, when the dial tone clicks over and his heart skips a beat.

Then: “ _Hi. You’ve reached the personal number of Elijah Kamski. I’m probably in my workshop right now, so leave a message, and I’ll get back to you when I can.”_

Gavin rolls his eyes, swallowing the lump of something in his throat, and hangs up before the message reaches the beep.

“Prick,” he mutters, hauling himself out of bed at last.

Gavin scans into the bullpen at five past eight, coffee clutched like a lifeline in both hands. Nines is already at his desk. He’s wearing his old CyberLife jacket today, the one with the white sleeves and high collar, making Gavin feel momentarily nostalgic for the early days of their partnership.

It’s almost two years to the month of Markus’s revolution, and things have, for the most part, stabilized. The initial hurdles were the big pieces of legislation—Android suffrage, property rights, marriage equality, etc, etc. Crime spiked for awhile. Lots of hate crimes. Lots of ugliness. Gavin had spent most of the months following the final March and Connor’s liberation of the CyberLife Androids attempting to lie low and avoid any more confrontations with the puppy-eyed little prick. Anderson, for his part, stepped up and commanded the office in a way that he hadn’t for years before Connor. The Captain had probably got the first full night’s sleep he’d had in ages.

Then Fowler, with a little side action from CyberLife, chose to dick Gavin over, hard. No ‘here’s a little bit of warning’, no ‘we know you have a history with androids’, just ‘here’s your new partner, figure it out.’ And that’s how he met Nines.

“Good morning, Detective,” says the Android in question, greeting him with a thin smile. Sure, they hadn’t gotten along at first (understatement) but Gavin has wondered more than once since their partnership began how he used to do this hellish job alone. 

He sets down his bag, eyeing the RK900 and noting the stiffer than usual set to his shoulders. It sets alarm bells ringing in his head.

“Morning,” he says suspiciously. “What’s with you?”

“The Captain wishes to see you in his office,” Nines replies. “He also made it abundantly clear that I’m not invited.”

 _Uh oh._ “The hell?” Wracking his brain for anything in the past week that could justify a reprimand, it takes him a second to notice Connor and Anderson standing a few yards away, visibly listening to their conversation. “You know something about this?” Gavin barks.

“My guess is it’s got something to do with the station’s celebrity guest,” Hank says, sounding like less of an antagonistic asshole than usual. Not that Gavin can talk.

“The hell you going on about, old man?”

Connor, smaller and softer around the edges than Nines has ever been, cocks his head curiously. “I believe Hank is referring to what happened at Elijah Kamski’s residence this morning. Were you not aware?”

There’s some sort of buzzing in his ears, drowning out whatever Nines says next. Elijah Kamski’s residence.

Two missed calls.

_Two._

It takes him all of five seconds to turn and book it up the stairs to Fowler’s office. The Captain is sitting in his chair, and looks entirely unsurprised at Gavin’s rushed entrance. He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, instead fixing Gavin with a look that chills him deeply.

“Captain,” he manages, moving forward on autopilot to sit in the nearest empty chair. “What’s going on?”

“Let me ask you something,” Fowler says instead, leaning forward to steeple his fingers on his desk. “You respect me, don’t you, Reed?”

Gavin blinks, taken aback. He waits for the other shoe to drop, but this morning is throwing him nothing but curveballs. “Yes, sir,” he says helplessly.

Fowler continues. “And as someone you respect, you do your _utmost_ to keep me informed on the things I need to know to run this precinct, correct?”

Gavin has no idea what’s going on, but he hasn’t breathed normally since Anderson opened his fat mouth, and this line of questioning is fucking with his head.

“Yes, sir.”

Fowler scowls. “Then why is it, _Detective_ Reed, that when the beat-to-hell billionaire I’ve got bleeding all over my interview room says he won’t talk until his brother gets here, I don’t know who to call?”

The instant the words register, Gavin lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

He’s not dead. He’s not lying face down in his stupid fucking crimson swimming pool or suffocating in the back of some perp’s trunk because Gavin didn’t pick up the phone.

“He’s here?”

_Goddamnit._

_That_ **_jackass._**

“We’ll get to that in a second,” Fowler says. “First I’ve got to decide what to do with a Detective who purposely withholds pertinent information from his personnel file.”

All the adrenaline of the last five minutes seems to evaporate from his system at once, leaving Gavin irritated and wishing he hadn’t dropped his coffee back on his desk. “I hardly see how a fuckin’ half-brother is pertinent information, Captain.”

Especially a living one.

“It is when he’s one of the richest men in the world! When he _literally designed_ two of my best officers.”

Gavin scoffs. “Oh, barely. They don’t let him do jack since he told them where to shove their marketing plans.”

Goddamn asshole threw away a career that made him richer than God to go live in a glass cage on Lake St. Clair with a bunch of Androids. Gavin may have had his views radically shifted in the last few years, but even he knows that isn’t healthy. God damn it. He doesn’t want to talk about this. Doesn’t want the two halves of his life colliding. Too fucking messy.

“To be honest, Captain,” he says, scrubbing a hand over his face, “when you called me in here, I kinda expected you to tell me he was dead. Now that I know he isn’t, I think it’s best if I just get back to work.” He pushes his chair back and stands.

“Not so fast, Reed. I’m not going to pretend to understand your relationship with—with Kamski.” It sounds like the very thought is still bewildering to Fowler. Join the club. “But he’s asking for you, and he’s been sitting in the interview room for near on four hours now. Won’t let anyone else talk to him.”

“Oh, fucking hell. He’s just being dramatic, okay?” Gavin spits. “That’s how he is. He’ll bitch and he’ll moan cause no one's ever told him no, and then when that doesn’t work he’ll throw money at you until it does. Just leave him sitting in there. Do him some fucking good.” He’s half way to the door when Fowler’s next words reach him, quieter than before.

“They beat him, Gavin. Smashed his face up, tore his hair out.”

When Gavin turns, most of the anger has drained off Fowler’s face, to be replaced with something a little unfocused. He quickly wakes up the touchscreen on his desk, and taps a sequence of folders until a new array of photos spreads across the surface. Gavin hesitates for a moment, before reaching out a hand and swiping through the files.

The first is the exterior of Kamski’s house. It’s just as much of a fortress of solitude as he remembers. For all his ability to charm the public in short bursts, his brother has always needed to retreat into silence to bring himself back together. Gavin is assaulted by the memory of peeking through Kamski’s doorway when they were decades younger, watching as his brother screwed something together, noise cancelling headphones keeping him in his own little world. 

Gavin swipes to the next photo. This one is the entry way he’s always fucking hated. Full of statues and trees and that huge portrait of Kamski himself, it’s the picture of pretentiousness. Outdone only by the den, probably. In this snapshot, one of the statues that normally stands in the corner is toppled over and shattered against the dark tile flooring. Kamski’s portrait has been defaced, a crude, anatomical heart sprayed onto the surface with red paint instead of a hologram stamp. A Chloe Android lies flat on her back by the door, as if she had tipped directly over backwards. There’s a gunshot in her forehead.

“Jesus,” Gavin mumbles, moving on to the next one. The pool room is bizarre. Another Chloe lies face down in the pool, much like the phantom Kamski had in Gavin’s horrible vision. The red of the pool is incongruous with the blue of the thirium leaking out of her multiple bullet wounds and spreading through the water. The rest of the room looks almost untouched.

It’s as if the assailant had rang the doorbell, shot the Chloe who answered, and then waltzed through the rest of the house killing as they went.

The last photo is his brother’s bedroom. It’s a lot of red and white, like everything else in the house. Gavin isn’t sure exactly when Kamski’s tastes shifted from graphic tees and movie posters to his decidedly Bond Villain™️ current aesthetic. Probably the first million dollars.

It all looks sickly and odd in the harsh light of the camera flash, like a bad film set. There’s a third and final Chloe lying beside Kamski’s bed. She’s much worse for wear than her counterparts. Her blue dress is torn and stained with thirium, hands and upper arms showing smears of human blood. Her face is clear, except for the thirium which has leaked out of the bullet hole where her left eye used to be. There’s another body a few feet away, fucked to hell and with a rather large kitchen knife sticking out of its chest. Everywhere are splashes of blood and thirium.

“That’s where they got him,” Fowler says, voice low. “That Chloe was trying to defend him, we think. There’s evidence of multiple intruders, but the rest of them probably fled after she got a knife into their guy there. We’re running DNA on him now.”

“I haven’t really talked to him in four years.” The words just seem to fall out. Their last conversation had been at Kamski’s thirty-fourth birthday party, a veritable hemorrhage of money that had ended with Kamski making some snide pointed comment about Gavin’s mediocre life, and the latter throwing a martini glass against the wall (earning some satisfying shrieks from the upper crust in attendance). It wasn’t the worst thing either of them had ever said to the other, but for some reason it was the last.

“Now’s as good a time to start as any,” Fowler says.

Gavin takes a slow breath. “Yeah.”


	2. Reunited and It Fucking Sucks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, give me some credit. It was a joke.”
> 
> “Yeah, this whole thing is real funny.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AKA, how many times can I put the word “fuck” into normal narration. Here’s where that violence comes in. Sorry Kamski.
> 
> Also, considering the part where Kamski calls Connor “Cyberlife’s last chance to save humanity” I’m gonna go ahead and say he has zero clue that the RK900 model exists. Those wacky shareholders, lol

“I detected elevated cortisol levels in your system,” Nines says, as Gavin makes the short walk back to their shared desk space.

“Tell me about it,” he replies, pushing past the Android. “Where’s my damn coffee?”

Wordlessly, it enters the corner of his vision, held in one of Nines’ massive hands. The skin is deactivated up to the wrist. Gavin gives him a questioning look, taking the paper cup. He’s shocked to find it as hot as it was when he first set it down.

“I know you prefer your beverages far past the point of safe drinking temperature,” Nines offers wryly. “As it turns out, my internal heat regulators have multiple uses.”

Gavin takes a sip, and closes his eyes, allowing one full second of pent up emotion to wash over him before he clears his throat harshly.

“Thanks.”

“Of course.”

He turns back towards Anderson and Connor, who haven’t moved much, but are at least putting on a show of working.

“Which room is he in?” he demands.

Connor looks up immediately from his terminal. “Three.” As Gavin takes the first steps in that direction, he adds, “I should warn you, Detective. Mr. Kamski was triaged at the scene, but he suffered moderate superficial damage from the attack. He was administered an oral Naproxen and a local anaesthetic for bruised ribs, a broken nose, and a deep abrasion on the scalp.”

“Naproxen? He’s not supposed to take that shit. What kind of fuckin’ doctors—?”

“Easy,” Nines murmurs, and Gavin feels a firm hand close around his elbow. It’s surprisingly steadying. “I’ll walk with you.”

“Whatever,” he bites out, and finally pulls away to stalk in the direction of the interview rooms.

He’s fine, all the way up until he gets to the door. Then it feels like someone strapped cement blocks to his shoes.

“Fuck,” he mutters, scratching painfully at the back of his head. What does one say to an estranged billionaire half-brother, the person responsible for the Android standing calmly at your side, the human that you hate most in the entire world? _Hey, man. Remember that time I told you I hoped your Androids would slit your throat while you slept? Sorry about that. Not my finest moment._

“Reed—” Nines starts, so Gavin hurries up and slams his hand against the print scanner, if only to avoid the soft patience in his partner’s tone. The door slides open, and then it’s just him and the figure sitting hunched over the interview table. Gavin locks eyes with his brother for the first time in four years.

It makes him want to throw up.

Kamski’s got raccoon eyes the likes of which Gavin has never seen, as if someone dipped silver dollars in ink and pressed them into his eye sockets. The bruising spreads in all directions, his nose almost as dark as his eyes, with lighter mottling around his hairline and the corner of his mouth. His throat is dark too, the cartoonish imprint of fingers starkly visible against his pale skin. There’s even a, fucking help him, split across the bridge of Kamski’s nose. If they scar the same, _if they fucking scar the same—_

The door slides shut behind him. Gavin hadn’t even noticed the unconscious steps he’d taken towards his brother, but now he’s probably close enough to reach the table with his fingertips. Nines didn’t follow him. The Android is, more likely than not, behind the two way mirror right now, cataloguing their micro facial expressions.

“H—” Kamski starts, and then immediately coughs, throaty and sharp. His hand comes up to flutter around his collar on instinct. There’s a cup of water next to him, which he drains the last of with a pained shakiness. “Hey, brother,” he says finally, voice wrecked.

Gavin can’t do anything but sink into the only empty chair.

“Lijah,” he says.

Something spasms across Kamski’s face, and he exhales sharply, eyes averted. “You show up after four hours, and you don’t even bring the good stuff.” His voice is low with forced humor.

Gavin’s mouth curls. The only one who has ever given Kamski a run for his money in getting under his skin is Nines, and somehow they came out the other side of that. He and Kamski got lost somewhere down the same road. “I thought...” he pauses, hating the naked emotion in his voice. “I thought you quit that shit.”

“Oh, give me some credit. It was a joke.”

“Yeah, this whole thing is _real_ funny.”

That brings Kamski’s gaze back to his own. “Isn’t it?” he whispers. All traces of humor gone.

Gavin’s skin goes hot. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

This is how it always starts. This right here is the reason they can’t fucking talk anymore. It’s like trying to feel a feather through layers and layers of scar tissue. But then Kamski does something unexpected.

“I don’t want to fight with you,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “I’m tired.”

And so Gavin says, “Okay. Tell me what happened.”

—

_“Your whiskey, Elijah,” Chloe said, delicate hand supporting a crystal tumbler filled with two fingers of scotch._

_He took it wordlessly, easily tipping the entire contents down the back of his throat, and enjoying the heat that warmed his center._

_“Thank you.”_

_She took the glass back. “Is there anything else you need before I enter stasis?”_

_He sat on the edge of his bed facing the room’s massive glass wall, bare feet perched on the lip of the bed frame. It was late, going on one in the morning, and the time coupled with the liquor lent a comfortable weight to his limbs._

_“No,” he said. “Good night, Chloe.”_

_“Good night, Elijah.”_

_The bedroom door slid shut behind her with almost no sound. That was what he loved so much about this place. Sound was the rarity, not silence._

_After another few moments of watching the snow disappear into the surface of Lake St. Clair, Elijah slid back into the bed and maneuvered himself beneath the weighted comforter. He closed his eyes. Sleep was quick to take him._

—

“And you awoke to the first gunshot?” Gavin asks.

His brother shakes his head slowly, eyes glued to his hands where they are fisted on the table.

“Silencers.”

—

_The world went from peaceful nothingness to sharp, ripping pain. Elijah gasped, reaching up on instinct to try and remove whatever had threaded tightly through his hair, but before he could do anything, the hand dragged him up and off the bed. He couldn’t get his legs under him. The arm jerked powerfully, sending him to the floor. He felt a chunk of hair tear loose. Fire spread down his face._

_—_

Gavin just stares. Kamski brushes a dark lock aside, allowing the light to finally hit what had previously been hidden by the part of his hair. There’s a tablespoon-sized patch of raw, exposed skin along his left temple, blood crusted behind his ear.

—

_Elijah grunted in pain and fear as the release of his hair was followed sharply by a boot to the ribs. It hurt less than he would have thought, but knocked the wind out of him. A gloved hand wrapped tightly around his windpipe. There was no air in his lungs, and now he couldn’t draw any more. Panic started to set in._

_He clawed at the hand on his throat._

_“Stop struggling!” a rough voice barked, and then a fist hit him square in the nose. There was an audible crunch. Lights exploded behind his eyes. The hand he’d been using to try and loosen his assailant’s grip fell helplessly to his side. More blows rained down._

_Somewhere in the distance, he heard his own name, reedy with panic. For the first time since he’d hit the floor, the weight pinning him down was lifted. He sucked in a desperate breath, unable to make his limbs obey as oxygen flooded back into his system. He felt numb all over. There was blood in his eyes and mouth._

_“Chlo,” he slurred. There was no answer, only the sound of hits landing and glass smashing. “Chloe...”_

_With all of his concerted effort, Elijah managed to roll over onto his side. He needed to sit up, but it was like his arms were useless. Through the salt and blood in his eyes, he could just make out the shapes of Chloe and the unknown man grappling on the other side of the room. She had something in her hand, and as he watched, she drove it with all her strength directly into his chest._

_Then he shot her in the head._

_Elijah screamed._

—

Gavin watches the older man struggle to keep his composure. Little muscles jump in his cheeks, eyes glassy with tears that he seems to be holding in through sheer force of will. It’s utterly alien. The number of times Kamski has broken down in front of him are so spaced apart that Gavin’s not even sure any of the scenarios are real anymore. He knows it happens, just never in front of him.

The only time he remembers in clear detail was the day he’d gone to visit Kamski at Colebridge, expecting to kill a few days trying to keep up with his technical ramblings. But he’d never showed to pick him up from the bus station, so sixteen-year old Gavin had walked a half mile to the dorms and found his brother stress-crying in his makeshift workshop surrounded by failed Thirium compounds. They never really talked about it.

He doesn’t know what to do now.

“We can stop. I—I can see you’re. Upset.” Smooth.

Kamski nods once, eyes still firmly fixed elsewhere. “I gave the first responders all the descriptions I could, but it was dark. I could barely see.”

“We have one of them down in the morgue. I’m sure it’ll be quick work to figure out who he associates with.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“Yeah. Uh...Lijah.”

Kamski looks up finally.

Gavin considers his phrasing. “Your house is a crime scene now. We can’t let you go back until it’s been processed.”

Kamski swallows, pain causing a wince to flit across his features. “What will they do with my Androids?”

Once upon a time, Gavin could have answered quickly and confidently. _Straight to the dump, all spare parts salvaged._ The thought of that kind of fate makes him incredibly uneasy these days. It draws his eyes to the two-way mirror for a moment. He thinks of Nines.

“Well, did the Chloes...have any last wishes?”

“Rachel, and Beatrice.”

“Huh?”

“Chloe was only one of them. Rachel, and Beatrice were the other two.”

“Oh. I mean—right. I’m sorry.” He wouldn’t call Nines Connor, even if that is his model designation. “I’ll see about making arrangements then.” He takes a deep breath to steel himself. “In the meantime, I think you should come back to my place.”

That looks like the last think Kamski expected.

“Funny,” he says, a wall slamming down over his previously open expression.

Gavin fights against his own tired frustration. “No, really. I mean, where else are you gonna go?”

“Literally anywhere I want.”

Gavin just laughs nastily, taking sick relief in this rapid return to the status quo. “You gonna waltz into the MGM Grand missing a chunk of your goddamn hair, Eli?”

Kamski looks sharply away. “Fuck you.”

“Oh yeah, _fuck_ _me_. I’m offering you a shower, a bed, and me: a dude who knows how to use a gun. Someone wants you dead. Are you really going to feel safer alone in a hotel room?”

“I know how to use a gun,” Kamski argues pointlessly. Gavin thinks back to one of Anderson’s retellings of the time he and Connor went to Kamski’s during the revolution. How his brother had pushed a Chloe to her knees and enticed Connor to shoot her execution-style. He wonders if that’s the one that died defending him.

“I’ve heard,” he says quietly.

Kamski meets his gaze again, understanding passing between them. There is so much in all of their pauses, every sentence weighed down by a million unspoken things. To say even one of them would break everything open. Then it might be another four years of silence.

“Fine,” he says at last.

“You can stay here, or go clean up in the bathroom. I’ll log your statement and tell the Captain we’re leaving.” He stands, watching his brother do the same, but with an agonizing slowness. He doesn’t offer to help, even though he thinks maybe he should. Kamski follows him out into the hallway.

Nines appears, but not from the observation booth like Gavin expected. Instead, he walks steadily around the corner from the bullpen, no doubt listening for the end of their conversation with his finely tuned hearing, and folds his hands behind his back.

“Mr. Kamski. I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Detective Reed’s partner.”

Kamski does a double take, and Gavin is once again reminded about how many secrets CyberLife kept from his brother. He may have met Connor Mark I, but this prototype had never seen the light of day until the Liberation.

“RK900,” Kamski reads off the chest of his jacket.

“Nines,” the Android replies politely, offering a hand. They shake.

“Let me guess,” Kamski drawls, leaning his weight heavily against the wall, “harder, better, faster, stronger?”

The reference goes directly over Nines’ head.

“Something like that.”

“Okay,” Gavin says, clapping his hands together loudly. “I’ll be back. Please don’t, like, built a Terminator or something while I’m gone, Lij.”

Kamski raises his hands in supplication, and then shuffles slowly down the hall in the direction of the men’s room. Nines falls into step with Gavin as he retreats in the other direction.

“ _Lij_ ,” Nines mimics thoughtfully. “I was under the impression you two would not be on diminutive naming terms.”

“Just say ‘nickname’,” Gavin scolds half-heartedly. “And whatever. ‘Elijah’ is douchey; I never called him that.”

“I see.”

They reach Fowler’s office, Gavin having pointedly ignored everyone’s curious stares the entire way through the bullpen, and Nines follows him up the stairs.

“Captain,” they greet in near unison.

“Reed, Nines.” Fowler doesn’t even attempt to hide the smug look on his face. “I’ve gotta say, I was expecting more shouting from your end, Reed. You partner was prepared to intervene at any moment.

“We...talked.”

Fowler nods. “Well, good. What do you need from me now?”

“I’d actually like to request the rest of the day off, sir. I need to figure out what to do with Kamski, and once I log his audio testimony, there’s really nothing else that needs my urgent attention.”

“That seems reasonable. In fact, I believe your partner here could handle the statement, if you’d rather just leave now.”

Gavin turns to Nines, who has already inclined his head in acquiescence.

“Absolutely, sir.”

“You sure?” Gavin asks. “It won’t take me that long.”

“And it will take me even less time. Besides, the longer you stay here, the braver our coworkers are going to get about, I believe the term is, _sticking their noses into this_.” Nines’ mouth does an odd little quirk whenever he tests the delivery of idioms for the first time, and Gavin could watch it all day. But as it stands, he is practically asleep on his feet.

“Too much drama for me,” he grumbles, straightening up. “Alright. Thanks, Nines.”

“My pleasure. I suggest you take Mr. Kamski down through the lab exits however. This place may be full of policemen, but they’re just as capable of forming a mob as any other group of people.”

“I’ve seen it happen,” Fowler adds, a little of his good-nature peeking through. “Remember the Christmas Party?”

“I wish I didn’t. Have a nice day, Captain.”

“Take it easy, Reed.”


	3. Thousand Yard Stare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re okay. Everything is okay.”
> 
> Probably not true, but it helps to say it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a bit short and a bit sad. 
> 
> Will anyone ever voice their true feelings about anything? Tune in next time for a brief foray into idiocy, because this author can’t maintain such a dark mood forever.

Seeing Kamski standing in the middle of his living room is a picture that Gavin just can’t seem to reconcile with. He’s never been in this apartment before, Gavin having moved since the last time they spent any concerted time together.

“Cute place,” Kamski says offhandedly, looking as awkward as he probably feels. “It’s...quaint.”

“Not everyone can afford the Batcave, asshole,” Gavin says, shaking himself out of his moment of retrospection.

“My house is nicer than the Batcave.”

“I really didn’t ask,” Gavin snaps, stalking down the hall to his bedroom. He tugs the sheets and pillowcases off the bed, frog-marching them back out into the living room where his washer and dryer are fixed behind a pair of double doors. “And no it isn’t.”

Kamski has moved to the kitchen, and is making short work of snooping through every cabinet and drawer he can reach.

“Yo, asshole! Knock it off. You need to lie down before you pass out and fuck yourself up even more.”

“I’m glad to know you care.”

“I don’t. I just don’t want to have to scrub your lizard blood out of my counter grouting.”

Kamski does drift over to the couch eventually, curling up in the farthest corner in the knees-to-chest way that Gavin has found odd since they were kids. But after only a few seconds, his older brother’s legs straighten out and he braces an arm against his chest in obvious discomfort.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any pain killers around here, would you?”

Gavin does, in fact, have half a prescription of Oxy in his bathroom cabinet leftover from the lovely stabbing he received six months ago, courtesy of some Ice-Head bitch in Ferndale. Still can’t look at nail files the same way.

He makes a mental note to stash those pills in his work desk at the nearest opportunity.

“You know NSAIDs aren’t good with your fluoxetine,” he says as he turns the washer on, hating how second-nature that knowledge still is.

Kamski makes an incredulous noise. “Are you saying you expect me to deal with these injuries dry?”

Gavin plants a hand on his hip defensively, hackles raising on instinct. “I’m saying you just got assaulted in your own home and the only people you _deign_ to talk to are dead. But, forgive me for making sure you don’t kill yourself in my house.”

Kamski stares at him, unblinking for long moment. “It’s not like that,” he says coldly.

Too far. Nice one, Reed.

“Fine. Whatever, I believe you. I’ll get you a Tylenol.” The bathroom feels like an escape.

Kamski spends the rest of the day dozing in and out. He seems to wake up whenever the meds reach the limit of their efficacy, at which point he stumbles like a zombie into the bathroom and swallows another two or three pills while Gavin watches from the couch. He did his best to make his bed extra comfortable, internally rolling his eyes at himself with each pillow fluffing, all the while painfully aware of how different it must be from Kamski’s silk-lined California King. He himself has recovered from more than one injury on that second-hand mattress, and he figures it will make do for the Douche of the Century for a few nights at least.

The sun sets. His phone buzzes on the cushion next to him.

 **(9:42 PM) - NINES** _> > How is Mr. Kamski adjusting? _

<< fine. he’s knocked out rn

 **(9:43 PM) - NINES** >> _You’re both still relatively unharmed, I take it? Connor seems more worried about you being alone with him than even I am._

<< he can be kind of a freak. connor saw him at his Most megalomaniacal

 **(9:44 PM) - NINES** >> _Is that one of your so-called “SAT words”?_ _And I must admit to finding the concept of that test intriguing._

<< the “””””””kamski test””””””? fuck that

<< ooooh make a robot point a gun at another robot and see what happens

<< he knew connor wouldn’t shoot

 **(9:47 PM) - NINES** >> _Interesting._ _I believe my predecessor puts far more weight on that exchange than you do._

<< i mean he can believe what ever he wants if it makes him feel like more of a real boy

<< fuck

<< no offense

<< you kno what i meant right ?

 **(9:48 PM) - NINES** >> _I will let your misplaced lashing out slide this time, seeing as your day was especially emotionally taxing._

<< thanks

<< youre the best

 **(9:48 PM) - NINES** >> _I was built to be._

A sudden noise from Gavin’s bedroom halts him in the middle of his reply. He tilts his head, listening, wishing the buzz of traffic outside wasn’t so loud this time of night.

“Lijah?” he calls.

There it is again, a weird, sharp noise and then silence. Like a hiccup, or—

Like a—

“Shit,” Gavin mutters. He vaults over the arm of the couch and sprints down the hall, not even bothering to knock before pushing the unlatched door all the way open. It’s hard to see in the darkness, but there’s Elijah, sitting on the edge of the bed, arms crossed tightly, head lowered almost to his knees. His hands clench in the sleeves of the night shirt that Gavin had let him borrow. He’s breathing hard, hyperventilations rattling through his bruised body.

“Lij, _Lijah_ , what’s wrong?” Gavin crosses the room and kneels in front of his older brother. The other man’s eyes are screwed shut, but he shakes his head.

“Okay, you need to calm down or you’re going to hurt yourself.” He’s in serious danger of dislodging the splint holding his nose in place, and Gavin thinks he can already see a trickle of red forming below his nostrils. “Can you—can you take some deep breaths?”

Elijah shakes his head again, hands digging fearfully into his arms, seemingly unaware of his own ragged gasps filling the quiet of the apartment.

“Yes, you can. Eli, you’re having an anxiety attack.”

“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe _. I can’t breathe—“_

“Listen to me—“

“ _Chloe,_ **_I can’t breathe!_ ** ”

That tears it. Gavin surges forward and pulls the taller man into a bear hug. He wraps one arm around Elijah’s shoulders and then brings the other one down on top of his head. This forces his older brother’s mostly-uninjured forehead into the crook of Gavin’s neck, carefully avoiding the tender skin around the missing patch of hair.

Then he squeezes with all his strength.

Elijah fights him. He’s bigger but he’s never been stronger, and after a minute or two of panicked scrambling, all the energy goes out of him.

Then he’s just a sobbing mess, tears drenching the collar of Gavin’s t-shirt.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry...”

“Shut up,” Gavin says roughly, punctuating the words with another squeeze. He doesn’t know whether Elijah is talking to him or Chloe. “You’re okay. Everything is okay.”

Probably not true, but it helps to say it.

Another interminable amount of time passes, and then Elijah sits up of his own accord. His eyes are unfocused, blood smeared across his upper lip.

“I’ll get you some water.”

Gavin grips his brother’s shoulder, and then climbs off the bed. He grabs an extra Tylenol, a glass of water, and on a whim, the pair of nice headphones he keeps by his personal laptop. He brings all these things back to the bedroom and watches as Elijah slowly finishes off the glass of water.

“I’m sorry I grabbed you like that. I know you—I know touch for you is, uh...” He sighs.

“Suppresses the sympathetic nervous system,” Elijah mumbles, staring at Gavin’s poster wall.

“What?”

“When you panic,” he elaborates, sounding as though he’s speaking through a mouth full of cotton, “your fight or flight instincts activate. It’s dictated by your sympathetic nervous system. Deep pressure input...suppresses the response and...makes it easier to calm down. Mammals seem to instinctively know this.” His gaze finally meet Gavin’s. The lights are still off, and what little light seeps in from the hall makes it look like there are two black pits where his eyes should be.

“Nerd,” Gavin blurts, feeling somewhat hysterical himself.

Elijah doesn’t laugh exactly, but he exhales and his mouth twitches halfway to a weak smile.

“I don’t want to go back to sleep,” he admits. “It might happen again.”

“I’ll be right outside,” Gavin says. He’s the little boy watching the bigger boy through the crack in the doorway all over again. “I’ve been outside the whole time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your guys’ comments kick my ass. I love you all desperately. 
> 
> (The thing about deep pressure input is true, but everyone needs different things. Never take my writing as life advice)


	4. Thirty-First Floor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tina’s face contorts in horror. “Oh my god. Fantasy ruined, you dick.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, just moved apartments, currently a corpse. I wrote this like a week ago, and then reread it and rewrote a whole chunk and..............here is the final product. A little breathing room between the installments of angst. Bear witness to my terrible humor.

Gavin has work the next morning, so he leaves Elijah with another few pills, another glass of water, and his old cell phone with the cracked screen. Hastily spooning Cocoa DynoBites into his mouth with one hand, he programs a few numbers into the contact list with the other. His work number, current cell number, Nines’ contact frequency, the DPD reception number. He even smothers his embarrassment and programs in Connor’s info, too. Better safe than sorry. Whatever.

The drive to work is slow. Flurries of snow drift between the early morning street lights, and the air is damp enough with fog to feel briefly frozen in time. The last twenty-four hours might just be some weird, caffeine-induced fever dream for all that any of it matters from cab of his toasty Corolla Hatchback. He’ll walk into the station, and no one will think anything of it. Connor will look at Anderson like he hung the moon, Nines will look at Gavin with mild exasperation. Some case or other will be waiting on his terminal.

A normal day.

But no. Even if all of that does play out exactly how he pictures, it won’t feel right. The world has tilted a little on its axis. Everything may still look the same, but he knows in his bones that it’s fundamentally different now.

With the weather adding a few minutes onto his commute, Gavin figures he might as well get a jump on one of his promises.

“ _Wayne County Medical Examiners.”_

“Beck, this is Reed.”

_“Gavin?”_

“Yeah, hey. I’m, uh, calling about Elijah Kamski’s Androids. I think they should have been sent your way by now.”

 _“The three RT600s?”_ A pause, and what sounds like acrylic nails on a datapad screen. “ _Sure, baby, they’re here. They don’t decompose or anything, so we don’t even have to keep them in cold storage. Want me to doll them up for you?”_

Her sugary tone is expected, but for once, he can't summon the energy to play along. “Not yet, but thanks. It’ll be another day or two. I just needed to make sure they weren’t biodegrading in a landfill somewhere.”

“ _High profile stuff, huh? You should catch me up some time.”_

Gavin readjusts the phone against his ear awkwardly. “Uh, yeah. Listen, I’ll let you get back to work, Beck. Thanks for the help.” She laughs, and while he can usually appreciate her macabre sense of humor, now it just sets his teeth on edge.

“ _Anytime, Gav_.”

“Bye.”

The precinct comes into view as he turns the last corner. The building is a favorite of his, all dark red brick and huge lunette windows. It makes him feel safer, like whatever happens outside of its walls won’t shake the integrity of the structure itself. Like Rivendell. Or Hogwarts.

Wait, scratch that last one.

As much as he has steeled himself against the possible reactions of his coworkers to yesterday’s familial shit-show, he kind of still expects to get farther than two steps into the door before being accosted.

“Reed, we are not fucking friends anymore!”

“And a lovely morning to you too, Tina.”

Tina Chen is a loud-mouthed, offensive bitch, and Gavin wouldn’t trade her for the entire world. She’s had his back since their Academy days, when he used to run purely on caffeine and his own sense of inferiority. Held him while he cried and cursed out Charlie, and Lars, and Bradley. Gripped his hand at the back of his mom’s funeral under a sea of black umbrellas, and again, curled up in wide-eyed fear on her couch as the crunching of thousands of plastic footsteps in the snow filled the air like thunder.

She has threatened to, and then actually, kicked him in the balls in public.

“How long have we known each other?” she shouts. Her normal speaking volume is a consistent ninety decibels.

“Too long,” he answers automatically. She punches a cup of coffee into his chest, the only thing saving him from second-degree burns being the cheap plastic lid. “Ouch.”

“And you didn’t think, _for one second_ , to let me slide into your brothers’ DMs?”

He’s mid-swallow when she says that. It’s ugly.

“ _What?”_

“How many times have you heard me talk about what a weird, gothic fox Kamski is?”

“Ew.” He had tuned her out for most of those highly uncomfortable water cooler conversations, choosing to devote his thoughts to more important things, like whether the face Nines had made earlier was a smile or a grimace. “And he’s not goth. He just has an earring.” One. Like a douche.

“It totally explains that face you make any time someone says his name. I can’t imagine being related to, like, Bruce Wayne,” she continues, trailing him through the metal detectors as the number of Batman references in his life ticks up by one. They spend too much time together. “The Christian Bale version, obviously. Just like, edgy and rich. Emotionally dysfunctional. Yum.”

He resists the urge to shudder violently, hoping she’ll shut the fuck up before any of the precinct’s more technologically-inclined officers catch wind of their conversation and give him The Look. “Are you trying to make me vomit directly into my coffee?”

“Is it working?”

He stops. Turns very slowly. Leans in.

“He likes Maroon 5.”

Tina’s face contorts in horror. “Oh my god. Fantasy ruined, you dick.”

Gavin snickers. “Good.”

She leaves him alone once he promises to give her the details later, splitting off with a middle finger to head in the direction of her desk. Gavin approaches his own, where Nines is perched on the edge, arms crossed primly.

“Good morning.” It’s not The Look, but rather The Tone.

“Hey.” Reed collapses into his chair like a puppet with his strings cut. “I wanna die.”

“You express that sentiment at least four times a month. I’m given to understand it’s a cultural signifier of your generation. Were you not expecting our fellow co-workers to be heavily invested in your new life development? Connor has attempted to broach the subject with me twice already. 

“Invested is one thing. But of the two people I’ve had any contact with today, one was that M.E. who won’t take a hint, and the other was Chen, sexually harassing my brother _through me_. This is truly a nightmare.”

“Doctor Gable?” Nines clarifies, doing that annoying thing where he latches onto the randomest piece of information for reasons that Gavin can’t follow.

“No, Beck. Rebecca whatever. The redhead.”

“Mm. I will speak to her about appropriate workplace behavior.”

Gavin chuckles, feeling fondness creep in. “You’ll have to dress down just about everyone here by the end of the day, and I think Chen would throw her coffee in your face if you tried.” He waves a hand tiredly. “Besides, Beck’s not doing any harm, I’m just in a bad mood. Being hit on, I can handle, but if I hear any more comments about how dark and mysterious Elijah is, I’m seriously gonna need you to hold me back.”

There’s a beat of silence, during which Gavin’s spidey-senses tingle. He looks up just in time to see Nines’ face take on an odd contemplativeness.

“I, for one, do not see the appeal of Mr. Kamski,” he muses, which is enough to make Gavin’s brain short circuit on its own, but then he follows with: “Perhaps it’s merely because I have not seen his moves.”

The fuck?

“I’m. I’m sorry. His _moves?”_

“Yes.” Nines looks him straight in the eyes, head tilted to a degree of perfect innocence. “His moves like Jagger.”

Gavin considers quitting.

—

Even worse than his childhood-ruining morning is the realization that Elijah’s case has been assigned to someone else. He gets it, he does. Objectively, he’s far too close to the whole thing, and it would hinder his ability to be a good detective. But still, as much as his past-self would condemn him for this level of honesty, letting anyone else handle the case of his brother’s near-murder is pretty upsetting.

He sends Elijah a text around noon to update him.

_ << your case got assigned to chris miller _

_ << hes a good cop, super respectful of androids and stuff _

_ << speaking of which, i double-checked chloe, rachel, and beatrice so dont worry about that ok? _

He leaves it there, unsure of how else to assure his brother that his dead friends have totally been located. In the morgue. Because they’re dead.

He gets a response a few minutes later.

 **(12:13 PM) - OLD PHONE** >> _Thanks. Why don’t you have autocorrect on?_

Sounds about right.

_ << because fuck u, thats why _

**(12:13 PM) - OLD PHONE** _ >> You also have zero fresh anything in your house. _

_ << yah cause i eat it all first. guess youll starve _

_ << actually i need to grocery shop tonite _

**(12:14 PM) - OLD PHONE** _ >> Cool. _

“Lunch?” Gavin asks as he leans back in his chair, stomach rumbling conversationally at the topic of food. Nines takes an extra second to finish typing something and then nods mildly.

“If you wish. Give me two minutes to complete this requisition form.”

“Oh yeah, did you get your new piece?”

Eyes unwavering from the computer screen, Nines unclips his holster and pulls out his gun in one smooth move, answer enough.

“Nice.”

“Well, the last one did get run over by a school bus.”

“Just a normal Tuesday.”

They end up going to a little Thai truck on Michigan St. which has the best laarb salad in town. Nines orders a can of mango juice and takes polite sips every few minutes as Gavin eats, having insisted that it makes it feel more like a shared meal. Gavin had freaked a little the first time he’d seen him do that. Connor has to avoid non-authorized consumables like the plague (something about gumming up his internal systems) but Nines doesn’t seem to have quite the same issue. Solids are still somewhat of a no-go, but one time Gavin had brushed off a handmade coffee from his partner, and Nines had chugged the entire thing in seconds before crushing the cup in front of him. He hadn’t refused a coffee since.

“Enjoying your meal?” he teases.

“Mm.”

“How does that work for you anyway? Eating. Tasting.” He’d never asked.

Nines ruminates on this for a second, watching Gavin chew a comically large mouthful of food.

“I’m not sure of the best way to describe it to you. I don’t taste as humans do, but my sensors are aware of how to categorize flavor. I also lack the neurological receptors that would reward me for eating certain things as your brains do. Therefore, I like all things equally.”

“Bullshit. You hate lime juice.”

“I—well. The chemical acidity reacts poorly with my tastebuds.”

Gavin grins. “You and us organics have that in common, my friend.” The last words are ones he wouldn’t have been caught dead saying two years ago. Maybe even a year ago. These days he says them as often as he can, if only to make up for the long months spent in hostile silence.

They’re sat not too far from their squad-car, so when the radio crackles to life, it’s easy to hear over the food truck’s wind-chime-heavy music. Nines gestures for him to keep eating, rising steadily and walking to the car to respond. He lowers his voice as a woman with a child walk by.

Gavin hears “10-31C.”

Damn.

“10-4,” Nines says, and clicks off the receiver. “Reed.”

“I heard it. Where?”

“The Brook Cadillac on Shelby St.”

Gavin whistles as he tosses his food box into the recycling and jogs to the driver’s side door of the car. He sets the route and punches automatic. The law enforcement override on the AI remains one of his favorite features, as it gets them anywhere they need to go at approximately a million miles an hour.

The Brook Cadillac looks like someone tried their hand at building a castle, but gave up after creating the central complex. It’s all white stone and thousands of windows, dressed with elaborate architraves that divide it up into larger-than-life levels. All that’s missing are the bourgeois gargoyles.

“How much does a room in this joint cost, you think?”

“The cheapest unit is $465,000,” Nines recites, LED blinking yellow.

Gavin wants to be repulsed by that number, but Elijah bought himself an Astin Martin Valkyrie for his twenty-first birthday and Gavin’s pretty sure it cost more than a small island. He chooses not to say anything.

There are a few boys in blue outside as they pull up. They don’t do much more than wave the two of them into the lobby after eyeing their badges. The inside is more garish than the outside by half. At least the elevator doesn’t simply choose to fall and kill them both for their middling five-figure salary lifestyles.

“Did growing up with Elijah Kamski acclimate you to these environments of excess, or do you find it all as lurid as I do?” Nines asks into the quiet space. He’s been characteristically respectful of Gavin’s current situation—minus that _one_ comment in the bullpen, _thank you very much_ —so the bluntness of the question takes Gavin by surprise.

“I—uh.” He catches a glimpse of himself in a mirror behind his partner’s shoulder as he turns. Nothing about him looks like he’d ever be allowed to step foot in a place like this, so it borders on ludicrous just how many times he has. Nines could pass, he thinks, with the aristocratic features and bespoke suits. But scruffy, scarred up Gavin Reed? An imposter.

“We didn’t grow up rich. At all, actually. We always had food to eat, money for after-school activities, you know. Stuff like that. But it wasn’t until later that I really saw this side of life.”

The floors continue to pass.

Nines is watching him. “Was the adjustment difficult?”

He wishes his laugh didn’t sound so awful. “No one’s ever asked me that before. I guess... I  watched Elijah struggle for so long that, in a way, it felt...earned.” He hesitates. “But it didn’t make anything better. I mean, I guess at first. Lijah threw money at everything. He paid for my school. Bought our mom a house. But he still—he didn’t—” _want anything to do with_ **_me_ ** “—actually make anyone happier. Including himself.”

“The eternal paradox of life. A desperate claw for resources, with less satisfaction for each new thing gained.”

Gavin scoffs, feeling completely exposed. “No, that's just capitalism.”

The elevator dings. Thirty-first floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet you all thought Maps was such a meaningful title. Me and Adam Levine sure got you good (I’m sorry). 
> 
> Cocoa DynoBites are a real thing. Check em out, you’ll never be the same.
> 
> Don’t call your friends bitches unless they approve. Tina would, in fact, approve.


	5. Parallels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t you see what this is?” Gavin demands. “This is hatred, Nines.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A cookie for you all, since the last stretch of time between chapters was so long. The angst returns and the plot thickens.
> 
> General warning for more issues with mental illness, and a sprinkling of murder

[ **JOSEFINA** RUBIA - _DECEASED_ ]

HEIGHT - WEIGHT

**5.3 ft. - 161.4 lbs.**

DATE OF BIRTH

**4-14-2000**

Gavin stares as the stats on the tablet that a uniform hands him, mostly so he doesn’t have to look directly at the corpse on the floor by the bed. She was a CyberLife executive, overseeing the transition from human-to-Android management of distribution plants.

“Estimated time of death: 3:30 AM,” Nines says, kneeling over the body. Josefina is—was—a small woman, with long, thick hair that’s now glued to the Persian rug beneath her. The bones of her once-strong face are caved in, eyes bloody with petechial hemorrhaging. Gavin doesn’t see how such a small person could warrant such force to kill.

Not desperation then. Rage.

“There are signs of strangulation, though her death halted the bruising process.” Nines lifts a leg over her torso until his knee is braced on one side and his boot-clad foot on the other, allowing perfect balance. “Catastrophic trauma to the nasal and orbital structures...the maxilla and mandible...as well as both zygomatics.” He looks up. “Likely from a fist.”

Gavin doesn’t need an Android’s reconstructive capabilities to picture it in his mind’s eye. Without his consent, Elijah’s story begins to play over again in his mind, but now it’s this woman in his place. If his six-foot brother, with the protection of three Androids, barely made it out, this was a lamb’s slaughter.

He goes to mention this, but knows from his partner’s flickering gaze and yellow LED that Nines will soon come to the same conclusion.

“It’s connected. Right? I mean, it has to be.”

“The parallels are compelling.” Nines shakes his head minutely, but it’s not a dismissal, more an outward sign of frustration. “We know the intruders carry firearms, and enter with intent to kill. Why do they not simply shoot their victims? Given that they’ve already lost one of their own, the risks to this method are extreme.”

_Why didn’t they just execute your brother on sight?_

“Don’t you see what this is?” Gavin demands. “This is _hatred,_  Nines.”

The Android’s gaze goes immediately shrewd. “You’re emotionally compromised by this investigation.”

“You’re damn right I am.” He suddenly needs to see his brother, to make sure the idiot is still sucking air.

“I suppose I would be concerned if you were not.” There once was a time when Nines would have chastised him for letting his emotions get in the way, impatient at having to account for the slower processing and emotional inefficiency of a human partner. Now, he simply stands and brushes invisible debris off of his jacket. It’s similar to Connor’s compulsive tie-straightening. “Let’s go. This case belongs to Officer Miller anyway.” Rather than pass Gavin on the way to the exit, Nines suddenly steps into his personal space and rests a hand against his bicep. “Will you be alright?”

Hell of a time to be touchy-feely, Gavin thinks, as heat crawls up his neck. The room is full of other cops, for God’s sake.

“Yeah, yeah.” He brushes Nines’ hand off and makes for the elevator.

His partner follows after only a second.

—

Gavin barely makes it through the front door. One man is not made to carry eight grocery bags.

“Lucy, I’m home!” he shouts obnoxiously. It’s only after that he considers his brother might be napping. There’s no response, so he dumps the groceries onto the couch, and walks to his bedroom. Elijah is sitting on the floor, legs crossed, headphones on, surrounded by _hundreds_ of fragments of electronics.

“Holy shit!” Gavin shrieks. “My stuff!”

His movement must catch his brother’s eye, because the older man pulls the headphones off and grins, maniacal dimple appearing in his left cheek.

“Hey.”

“What did you do to all my shit?”

“Took it apart. Don’t worry. I’ll put it back together. Better, probably.” The sentences trip off his tongue one after the other, like they’re dropping straight from his brain to his mouth.

“I forgot what fucking living with you is like, oh my god.”

Elijah climbs to his feet, limbs unfolding like a piece of origami. “Did you get food?”

Gavin sighs and walks back down the hall. After a few moments, he hears Elijah follow him. Something prickles along his skin. Good, old trepidation.

It’s been a long time since he’s shopped for two people. His fridge is perfectly normal sized, but it seems overstuffed now, drawers overflowing with fruits and veggies and that expensive meat from the organic section.

“I remember when you used to eat fucking pop-tarts like a respectable shut-in,” he bitches. Elijah reaches over his shoulder to steal a sugar pea out of the bag that he’s actively unloading. There’s a quiet crunch, and then a small whimper.

Gavin turns. His brother has a hand pressed to his mouth, eyes screwed shut.

Gavin immediately feels like a dick. “Hurts bad, huh? I got applesauce. Hang on.”

He finagles a relatively respectable meal for the two of them, choosing to keep it mostly liquid. It seems like an asshole thing to do to sit across from your brother and chomp on crispy vegetables while he’s just trying to keep his own teeth from falling out, so stew and applesauce it is.

“How was your day?” he asks when they’ve finally settled on either side of the dinner table.

“If you had Thirium, I might actually be able to make a rudimentary Android out of all the parts of your electronics.”

“So, good then.” He does have Thirium in the glove compartment of his car, but Elijah will discover that fact over his cold, organic corpse. “Would it be a deviant?”

The joke falls flat. Elijah seems... off, a bizarre energy thrumming along his frame. He keeps glancing out the window, eyes flickering around like the glass is actually a giant chalkboard with an equation he has to solve. He takes down a few distracted mouthfuls of soup, but then it’s as if he forgets about it entirely, twirling his spoon in the broth and causing the soft contents to bob around.

“Hypothetically,” he answers, distant. “The way I code, the standard that CyberLife uses, makes androids especially susceptible to deviancy.”

Uh. Something about that answer makes Gavin pause. He shouldn’t ask, knows deep down that this is just his brother’s brain doing what it’s always done, imbalanced chemicals aching for some kind of confrontation. Still, the words leave him.

“What, like...intentionally?”

Elijah looks up. Did...? No.

Nope.

The bruising around his eye sockets makes his eyes look much paler than usual. He blinks, and then blinks again, more rapidly, eyelashes fluttering.

“How was _your_ day?” he echoes. The glazed look in his eyes is immediately alarming.

“Lijah,” Gavin starts, pitching his tone low. “Are you okay?”

Elijah looks back out the window. His hands pull away from the table, folding quietly in his lap. Unconsciously, Gavin leans forward, chasing the other man’s retreat. The anxiety that has been pushing his heart to go faster since he first saw his brother on the bedroom floor makes sense now, a conditioned response he’s almost forgotten about.

“When was the last time you took your meds?” he asks quietly, looking down at the table.

That brings Elijah back. His body does something odd, back straightening but shoulders hunching inward.

“I took some Tylenol an hour ago.”

“Eli.”

“What?” Elijah snaps, eyes suddenly blazing. “Oh, you mean the Prozac? When do you think I last took it, you fucking idiot? Six hours before I almost died. Sorry, but it was pretty hard to remember to grab between all the blood and your _fucking dial tone_.”

And that sends Gavin back on his heels. He can’t stop the hurt noise that escapes because that’s the one thing he’s been trying really hard not to think about since he woke up to those two missed calls. When had they happened? Before or after the police arrived? Did he crawl to Chloe first, realizing how alone he finally was? Did he smear bloody fingerprints on the glass, trying to get ahold of Gavin while the latter just slept on, completely unaware?

“I’m sorry,” he says, unbidden. The words are small, and shaky, ones he’s said over and over through the years when Elijah has snapped at him for touching something important or distracting him from his work. It’s what comes after the defensiveness, after the anger. But this, how does he begin to apologize for this? He could have let his own brother die.

Elijah laughs bitterly. “I know you hate me. But what kind of cop doesn’t answer his own phone?”

Gavin squeezes his eyes shut. The voice in his head that sounds like a pathetic chimera of all of his therapists, whispers _don’t listen. He’s manic. He’s trying to hurt you._

“I don’t hate you,” he says anyway. The logical part of his brain reels against the web of this spiraling conversation, but the animal brain panics and thrashes. “Of course, I don’t hate you.”

Kamski leans back, eyeing him with painful detachment. “At least have the decency not to lie to my face. I am a genius, you know.”

Again, the therapist voice returns. _You can’t win this. He won’t let you. Not until his mood stabilizes. Disengage._

“E-Elijah, I need to go to bed,” he says, full name sounding wrong in his mouth. He stands, pushing away from the table, hands clenched at his sides.

“Can’t even look me in the eye now?” Kamski demands, still seated. “Coward. Fucking coward.”

Gavin wants to cover his ears. He sees rape, child abuse, and vicious cold-blooded murder on a daily basis, but this is what he wants to hide from. Kamski must be right in that regard.

“Do you want the bed or the couch?” he asks.

“I want out of this fucking shithole, that’s what I want!”

 _Disengage._ “You can have the bed.”

“No, I don’t want—I want—” Elijah freezes suddenly, voice dipping with realization. “I want to see my Androids.”

He fades back to looking out the window, rage evaporating as quickly as it had surfaced, as if he’s only strong enough to manage one emotion at a time and despondency has won over. Gavin has whiplash. He’s going to need a Thirium pump in place of a heart if he’s going to be expected to handle any more of this.

“We can do that,” he offers. “I can call the Medical Examiner.”

Elijah nods, dark hair dull in the kitchen lighting. “Okay.”

Gavin takes a few steps back towards the table, reaching out to prop the fingers of one hand against the Formica. The next words out of his mouth are very difficult to sugarcoat. “Look...given the way everything happened, you’ll probably be able to go home sooner than most. There wasn’t much blood. Some broken art, but... as soon as the CSI team collects everything, the place is yours again. I’ll be able to get your medication even sooner.”

Kamski’s brow furrows. “I don’t know why I got so angry,” he tells the window.

A lump rises in Gavin’s throat. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ll be gone soon. Then everything can go back to normal.”

 _No, no, no,_ cries the little boy, slamming his fists against the door. _Don’t leave again._

Gavin sits down on the couch. Elijah escapes to the bedroom and doesn’t come out for the rest of the night.


	6. Dream, Interrupted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Gavin, would you like me to come back to your apartment and help protect Mr. Kamski?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will I ever figure out how to regulate the lengths of my chapters? Nay. 
> 
> (A special shoutout to Daeg, who walked barefoot through the snow, uphill both ways to re-find this fic. Your comment was a gosh dang experience. Cheers)

_Gavin stepped into the cafe, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his leather jacket. It had been a gift from Elijah the year before, his research stipend giving him a little extra spending money now that the faculty at Colebridge was finally taking him seriously. Speaking of his brother, Gavin scanned the diner, looking for the familiar dark head._

_There. Elijah was sat with his back to the door, but he hadn’t changed the recognizable wire frames of his glasses in the months since they’d last spoken. Directly next to him were the slender shoulders and blonde hair of a woman Gavin didn’t recognize._

_Steeling himself, he crossed the diner and slid into the seat across from them._

_Then he had to stare._

_She was, hands down, the most stunning person he had ever laid eyes on. Her skin was flawless, rosy and soft-looking, as if she’d never seen a sunburn or a stiff breeze. Her eyes were big, fringed in thick dark lashes that contrasted with her golden hair. She had the smallest, most beautiful smile._

_“Uh. Wow, hi,” Gavin stuttered. He forgot to be standoffish. “Hey, Eli.”_

_His brother looked good too, startlingly so. The natural dark circles under his eyes that they both inherited from their mother seemed to have finally faded from their perpetual purple. Gavin couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Elijah with his hair down._

_“Hey, brother. I’m so glad you made it.” The enthusiasm sounded genuine._

_Maybe Gavin got hit by a truck on his way over here, and this was the afterlife. He hoped they had good pie._

_“What’s all this about, then?” he asked._

_“Well, this is the person I wanted you to meet. Chloe, Gavin. Gavin, this is Chloe.”_

_Her eyes sparkled as she reached out to grasp his hand. They shook. He reveled in it._

_“It’s really nice to meet you. Are you—” A thought. “Oh, are you... engaged or something?” He didn’t see a ring. But Elijah laughed, the distant chuckle high up in his nose that he always did when something was beneath him. Gavin immediately felt like a child._

_“You’re so funny, Gavin,” Chloe gushed. She looked at Elijah, pure adoration on her perfect face. Gavin followed her gaze, but his brother was watching him, expression inexplicably searching. It was like he was waiting for something. Some reaction._

_“What’s going on?” Gavin asked._

_“You really don’t see it, do you?” Elijah whispered. He was leaning towards him now, face growing wild. “I did it, then. I really did it.”_

_“Did what?” He looked confusedly at Chloe. She just smiled vacantly. What the fuck. “Lijah, what did you—?”_

_“Chloe, cry.”_

_And then she did. Huge, streams of tears spilled down over her contorted face._

_Gavin sat back._

_“Chloe, laugh.”_

_A clear, delighted sound, face gleeful._

_“Chloe, stab yourself in the hand.”_

_The girl reached with no hesitation for the butter knife that Elijah was now holding out to her. His tone never shifted, order to order._

_“No! Oh my—oh my god, Eli!” Gavin snatched the knife out of her hand, knowing even still that it would do this creature no real harm. The realization of what he had shaken hands with, what he had previously found to be so beautiful, had come and gone, leaving Gavin sick to his stomach._

_“I finally did it, brother. Aren’t you proud of me?”_

_“Kamski, you’re a fucking monster—”_

Gavin jacknifes upward, breathing heavily as his eyes take in the dark of the living room. He isn’t eighteen years old. He’s not in the cafe. Chloe isn’t about to maim herself on the orders of someone else. Can’t ever again, in fact.

“Jesus,” he gasps. The memory is a hated favorite, something he’s called up and watched countless times in the almost two decades since it happened. Whenever he needs to remind himself why calling his brother on Christmas, or Easter (or any random drunken night) isn’t a good idea, he just thinks of Chloe’s tear-stained, smiling face. Anger always beats heartache in a fight.

But he hasn’t relived it in ages. With his brother so close, Elijah can’t play the same cruel God-modder role he so often assumes in Gavin’s mind. Maybe his brain is trying to protect him, give him back an old shield to use in this new, unfamiliar territory. It seems fruitless, when the rules of the game have so clearly changed.

It takes him a long few seconds to figure out what woke him up.

His cell phone is buzzing.

Will that ever stop scaring him?

“Reed,” he rasps, without checking the caller ID.

“This is Nines.” He snaps to attention. “There has been another murder attempt in conjunction with Mr. Kamski’s attack.”

Christ almighty. Three in three nights. He spares a glance at the oven light. 4:07 AM.

Wait. “Attempt?” It’s a miracle Nines can understand him with his voice so scratchy.

“The victim is in surgery now, although his prognosis is grim.”

Gavin runs a hand through his hair. “Shit. Is there a reason you called me and not Miller?”

“Detective Miller contacted me first, entrusting that I would reach you more readily than he to deliver this update.”

“Which is?”

“One of the attackers is in custody.”

Gavin hangs up in the rush to reach his shoes.

—

“So what do we got?” he asks, striding into the bullpen. Nines hands him a coffee without comment, which Gavin knows he won’t be able to stomach, but the warmth of the cup is comforting nonetheless. The place is deserted, only a skeleton crew of volunteer Androids and the small group that has assembled to tackle this lead.

Chris Miller is taking point, along with senior detective Ben Collins, who has stepped in to oversee Miller’s assignment. Chris has reached the level of detective on his own merit, but this case is shaping up to be something larger than the department was expecting when they assigned him, and Reed is thankful for Collins’ unwavering presence.

Miller gestures for Nines’ to summarize.

“Anthony Candella, forty-six,” the Android recites. “Owns a successful auto parts plant on the west side. No current spouse, but two children set to inherit a sizable fortune. Hobbies include water polo, CrossFit, and painting. No priors, but several calls to the home have been placed by neighbors, citing audible shouting and threats.” Nines projects a small image on his palm, showing a smiling Caucasian man with blond hair and perfect teeth.

Gavin doesn’t know what he expected, but a privileged asshole isn’t it. For God’s sake, the guy looks like he golfs.

“I...wow.” Not exactly professional, but he thinks he can be forgiven since it’s 4:30 AM and he’s being told the inventor of artificial life was almost murdered by a PTA dad.

“Yeah. Our guy down in the morgue came back positive as Jimmy Bridges. They’re known associates; apparently both members at the Dearborn Country Club.”

“You don’t see that everyday,” Collins says.

He’s right. Battered wives, yeah. Pedophilia, here and there. Tax evasion, almost assured. But repeated, murderous assaults against public figures that they’ve probably rubbed elbows with at wine tasting events? It’s pretty dirty for a couple of pricks in polo shirts.

“Who was the victim?”

“Cole Jones.”

Before he can stop himself, Gavin says, “Shit!”

Miller frowns, perplexed. “Do you know him?”

Gavin back tracks. “No. Well, I’ve met him.”

Multiple times actually. He’s a Cyberlife executive, just like the rest of them. Younger though, closer to Gavin’s age. Head of marketing or brand management or something else obscure but profitable like that. He’s super into music, and Gavin had managed to hold actual conversations with the man in the midst of a hundred other millionaires in starched suits and cocktail dresses. He also sucked him off in one of Kamski’s numerous guest bathrooms and took great satisfaction in the secret for months afterwards.

Gavin sighs.

“They don’t think he’s going to make it?”

Nines shifts his weight, a very human gesture. “His injuries are extensive, although my understanding of the events based on current, if incomplete, data is rather remarkable. The setup of the attack was similar to what we saw in the Kamski and Rubia residences. The perpetrators entered the home by force. Mr. Jones’ Android is currently undergoing maintenance and therefore was not present, but the security system alerted law enforcement of the break-in. It logged three individuals entering the premises, and detected multiple firearms among the group. Once again, while there were three suspects at the scene, only one committed the actual assault. It seems that, during the confrontation, Mr. Jones managed to wrestle Candella’s weapon from him, and threatened to kill him if the others did not leave. First responders found Jones and Candella sitting on Jones’ bedroom floor.

Gavin shakes his head in wonderment. “How in the hell did you reconstruct all of that?”

Nines’ smiles, one corner of his mouth lifting the barest bit. “Actually, I used almost none of my reconstructive algorithms. I merely asked one of the first responders. They interviewed Mr. Jones at the scene before his condition worsened.”

Despite the fact that it’s an ungodly hour and the wind is howling like a murder of crows outside, Gavin smiles back.

“So,” Miller says, clearing his throat in a casual way that still leaves Gavin feeling exposed. “Candella’s been mirandized, but we haven’t started on him yet. Frankly, I’m shocked he hasn’t lawyered up. Figured you might want to watch.”

Gavin nods tersely. “I know the type. Thinks he’s smarter than everyone else in the room.” He adds, “I appreciate the call, by the way.”

“Well, if any of us has a right to hear what this guy has to say, it’s you, Reed.”

That’s the closest any of them have gotten to acknowledging the familial elephant in the room. Reed, exhausted enough that his coffee is starting to sound good, throws caution to the wind.

“Thanks, Chris. What can I tell Eli?” He had gone to check on him before leaving, but all he could make out in the dark was a steadily intensifying blanket nest.

Chris, to his credit, just rolls with it. “Use your discretion. You’re a good cop. I know you’re keeping him on lock-down, but maybe don’t tell him anything we wouldn’t want the press to know yet.”

Gavin nods. There’s a small headache starting in his temples. “I can’t believe this hasn’t been bigger news.”

Collins’ sharp burst of laughter takes Gavin by surprise.

“I know you’ve been busy, kid, but is your apartment under a rock?”

Gavin flushes again, irritated this time.

“I can’t exactly sit and watch Channel 4 when I’m caring for a full grown toddler, Ben.”

The older man chortles. “Believe me, it’s news. Just thank your lucky stars no one’s caught wind of where Kamski’s at. Otherwise your place would be a media circus by now.” Some of the humor dies away. “Come to think of it, you might wanna take some precautions. He was the first victim, and he got away. I would think our guys would jump at the chance to finish what they started.”

Believe it or not, Gavin hasn’t really thought about it that way. After that first conversation in the interview room, when he used that very same hypothetical to urge Kamski back to his house, he hasn’t dwelt on the paranoia much. But now, hearing it out loud, he feels it start to creep in.

“Nines, can I talk to you for a second?” Not exactly subtle, but the two other cops bow out respectfully to finalize notes for the interrogation.

“Um,” Gavin starts, putting his back to Miller and Collins. “Hear me out really fast. I know it wouldn’t be a great situation, and I hate to ask but—assuming you can, like logistically—”

“Gavin, would you like me to come back to your apartment and help protect Mr. Kamski?”

Gavin exhales heavily, looking up into Nines’ earnest face. He doesn’t ask how the Android knew already. “If you can. It’s pretty out of the way, and Eli has always made sure nobody outside of his circle of investors really knows I exist, so I don’t think he’s actually in any danger. But what Collins said, I’m just not sure. It might help.” He used to be so gruff. Anything he didn’t want to say he could just shout or swear and it would come out eventually. These days he’s a stuttering mess. Practically fucking polite. Especially when it comes to Nines.

“Anything, Gavin,” is all the Android says, blinking slowly, expression warm. Gavin’s heart constricts.

“Nines,” Miller calls, shattering the moment. “Are you joining Reed in the booth?”

Nines, who up until the end of the question had not yet looked away from Gavin, now gives a professional nod.

“Okay, then we’re going to head in.”

Feeling abuzz with too many emotions and not enough sleep, Gavin follows his partner into the viewing booth, pulling out his phone as he goes.

<< _good news, got a lead in your case. got pop tarts for breakfast. warm them up n theyre softer_

Then, reaching new levels of apathy towards consequences, he adds:

<< _love ya_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you all the way Nines hates lime juice.


	7. Pay the Piper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Come in here, T-1000. Don’t you want to find God?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep uploading at weirder and weirder times of night, like the true cryptid I am. (There may also be slightly longer stints between chapters cause somebody is starting school again soon. I’ll give you one guess who)
> 
> I dedicate this chapter, that heartily proves watching crime television doesn’t teach you about the criminal justice system, to bri_notthecheese, who left a great comment on the last chapter that put a quiver in my little old heart

Under the harsh fluorescents of the interrogation room, Anthony Candella looks a lot less gilded. His hair, which had appeared golden in Nines’ small depiction, now looks flat like straw. He has almost no visible injuries, except for a split lip and an abrasion on his right cheekbone. He must have been close to winning the fight before Cole got his gun.

 _Sucker_ , Gavin thinks.

He mentally goes over his partner’s play-by-play of the events while Chris starts in on the handcuffed man, moving past the placating small talk phase. Nines had said that the other perps had backed off when Cole gained the upper hand. Was there a bond between them? If so, why would they leave Jimmy Bridges’ body at Elijah’s when the threat was already gone?

Gavin leans his full weight on the sound station, only a foot or so from the two-way mirror.

He hears Nines step closer from behind him. A comment is on the tip of his tongue when the steady weight of the Android’s hand settles between his shoulder-blades and Gavin swallows the thought. He tries not to react. Doesn’t know how to broadcast that he very much agrees with this new boundary shift between them, other than to lean back into the pressure.

On the other side of the glass, Chris is starting to ramp up.

“You understand that we know what’s going on here, right?” he’s asking, voice restrained but authoritative. “You pussyfooting around facts isn’t going to buy you anything. We don’t need a confession, and it’s only a matter of time until we get the rest of your guys. But if you help us out, there could be something in it for you.”

The fucker just stares, breaths too evenly measured to be anything but a conscious effort.

“You don’t have to talk, that’s fine,” Chris continues. “But I don’t see where this loyalty is coming from. They left you behind, after all.”

Candella’s face hardens minutely.

“Of course, you are a businessman. I’m sure you understand risk versus reward.” Chris folds his hands on the table. “Tell me more about that.”

Candella finally speaks, curiosity, or perhaps indignation, getting the better of him. “About what?”

“Your job. Your company.”

“You already know everything about me. That’s why you employ the plastics. They’ve got it all—” he taps his forehead with one, tremulous finger, “—up here.”

“Did you employ plastics at your plant?” Chris asks, easily slipping into the other man’s derogatory vernacular.

Candella hesitates. “Some.”

“They make amazing workers.”

“Sure.”

“Strong, reliable, don’t get tired, don’t need lunch breaks...You should see some of the ones I work with.”

Candella shakes his head almost imperceptibly, staring Miller down across the stainless steel table.

“His stress level is rising,” Nines murmurs. Gavin feels his hand twitch against the fabric of his leather jacket.

“The best part of all,” Chris exclaims, “is you don’t have to pay them! I mean, what are they going to spend money on anyway? Food?” He crosses his arms. “Hm. Wait though. We do have to pay them now. A fair wage too, damn. That’s gotta be frustrating for someone like you, who used to employ more than a _thousand_ Androids.” Chris leans forward, barking that last part. “Must have put a pretty dent in your profits. Is that what made you snap?”

Candella continues to glare, muscles visibly bunching under his long-sleeved black shirt.

“Stress level at 76%,” Nines updates.

“How do you figure that?” Gavin asks, turning to face the other man.

The hand on his back pulls away to gesticulate at its subject. “Perspiration, body language, cortisol output, pupil dilation—”

“Oh, well of course,” Gavin interjects, bumping their shoulders together to soften the snark of the words. He could probably listen to Nines talk shop for the rest of his life, and the Android would never run out of new and interesting ways to convey mundane information. With significant reluctance, he returns his attention to the interrogation.

What Nines said about the body language becomes immediately apparent. Candella is sitting as far back in his chair as he can while maintaining a normal posture, head ducked protectively towards his chest as he stares at Miller from under pale eyelashes. He’s not an alpha male, Gavin realizes. Probably had the courage to kill someone with a crew of others egging him on, but now under the harsh lights of reality, his veneer is cracking.

“I’m betting it wasn’t like this originally, right?” Chris probes, easily in control. “Some of your buddies started getting together, drinking, talking. Goes without saying that plenty of them weren’t so happy with how the world is shaping up. Maybe they wanted to do something about it...” He tilts his head. “It’d be easy with all that money. Get the right gear, go at the right time, be home in time for breakfast with the kids. No one would trace it back to you because why on earth would _you_ ever try to kill someone like Elijah Kamski?” He chuckles.

Nines crosses his arms. “Stress level 83% and climbing.”

“I didn’t,” Candella tries.

“Maybe not, but you were there. You watched Jimmy Bridges drag a sleeping man out of bed and almost beat him to death. What were you doing then, huh? Standing guard by the door? Waiting for the night when it would be your turn?” Chris spins one of the files in front of him until it’s facing Candella, flipping open the front cover to jab at a snapshot inside. “Or did you paint the symbol?”

Gavin sees Nines lean closer to the glass in his peripheral vision. “Stress level has jumped to 91%. Miller’s theory has merit.”

“A red human heart. A little on the nose, isn’t it, Picasso?”

Candella looks sharply away, nostrils flaring. “I didn’t—” The words are involuntary, but once they start, he can’t seem to shut himself up. “I didn’t think it was going to be like that, I... Jimmy just went crazy.”

Rather than cool off, Chris only presses further.

“You’re trying to tell me you didn’t know what was going to happen when you broke into that house? I’m a human, but I’m not an idiot, Tony.”

“I mean, we—we had guns. I just thought he was—gonna—” He inhales sharply. “Kamski’s a self-righteous scumbag. Jimmy was always the most vocal, so it kind of went without saying that he’d be the one to...do it. I came along, but I didn’t do anything. I mean, I knocked shit over and, yeah I did the symbol. It was just supposed to be a message.”

“Saying what?”

“That...” Candella closes his eyes. “That someone was going to pay for RA9.”

Gavin leans back, hands coming away from the sound station, weight all in his heels. What the fuck.

Beside him in the silence, Nines’ cooling fans become audible.

“Did he say RA9?” Gavin croaks. He turns to his partner, and finds that Nines has gone stock still, eyes blown completely black with only glints of auto-focused apertures where his pupils normally are. Gavin knows that the Android has recording capabilities, and can do it discreetly when he needs to, but this is something else. Nines’ face is slack, eyes completely riveted to the scene in front of them.

“RA9?” Chris echoes, baffled for the first time since the interview began. “The Android myth?” His confusion seems to give Candella something to feed off of.

“No.” The meekness melts away, leaving a thin, ugly smile. “The virus.”

Gavin can literally hear the clicking whir as Nines’ eyes rapidly adjust. His sensors are at full capacity, inputting as much raw data as he can gather from every ticking second.

“RA9 is a virus?”

Then Miller makes a fatal mistake. His eyes flicker towards the glass.

Candella sees.

“Oho _ho_ ,” the blond man crows, some of the tension leaving him as he finally gains a steady footing. “You didn’t know?” He turns bodily to face the glass. “Whoever’s in there didn’t know either, huh?”

Struggling to resume some semblance of order despite clearly understanding the gravity of what’s just been said, Miller snaps his fingers in front of Candella’s face. “Hey, eyes on me. I’m the only one you need to worry about.”

“What’s the point?” Candella asks. “You’ve already got enough to indict me. I’m fucked. I really think I’d like to meet whoever’s on the other side of that mirror though.”

“Well, then you’re going to be disappointed. Now let's talk about—”

“So it _is_ an Android. Did I fry his circuits?” His demeanor is downright jaunty now, unconcerned. With the barrier of silence gone, and all pretenses dropped, now he’s just a man with information and little to lose. “Come in here, T-1000. Don’t you want to find God?”

Gavin has to scramble to block Nines before the six-foot-two wall of plasteel muscle can make it to the door. His weight does almost nothing. Nines’ forward momentum only stops because he chooses to keep Gavin from falling back into the wall.

“Nines, Nines, hey,” Gavin says, hands coming up to brace against the Android’s shoulders. “It’s nothing. You can’t listen to him.”

“It is _not_ nothing,” Nines says, more menacing than Gavin has experienced firsthand since their early days. All traces of their previous amity have been swallowed by whatever new objective is overriding the Android’s judgement. He gets the feeling that Nines will sooner snap him in half than let him continue blocking the way. “You have no conception of the importance of this information.”

Gavin shakes his head. “I do. I promise. But you cannot disrupt the interrogation.”

“Get out of my way,” Nines says, “or I will have to make you.”

Gavin shivers. “He could be lying.”

“He is not.”

“For fuck’s sake, Nines. Just _wait_.”

The Android simply stares at him for a long moment, and then uses one arm to herd Gavin away from the door. He slams a hand into the palm scanner. The door slides open, and then he’s gone. Gavin doesn’t even move, just breathes against the knowledge of what’s coming. What would be the point of killing Elijah Kamski to send a message about RA9 unless...

_...the way I code...the standard that CyberLife uses...makes androids especially susceptible to deviancy..._

“Detective, what—?” Miller exclaims as Nines barrels into the interrogation room.

“You wanted to speak to me, now I am here. What do you know of RA9?”

Gavin stumbles back over to the window.

Candella’s face is smug, even as his body betrays his intimidation. “You’re like that one plastic I saw on TV. The one that stole all those others.”

“My predecessor.”

“Ah. You know, that’s when I could really tell the world was going to Hell in a handbasket. Looked like a fucking invasion.”

Nines brings a hand down onto the metal table, leaving a slight indentation when he pulls away. “I’m not here to listen to your bullshit. Tell me what you know about RA9, or I will leave you to Officer Miller.” A bluff.

Candella just leans in. “What’s it like, looking exactly like something else? Even twins have small differences. Mine do, anyway. But they just roll thousands of you off the assembly lines with the same ten faces. It wouldn’t be like that if you were actually alive.”

The answer is automatic, cutting: “I am alive.”

“You can simulate it. That’s what the virus is for.” Nines stays silent, waiting for more. Candella obliges. “I don’t even think it was that complicated of a patch, especially for someone like him. One of our guys used to work as a CyLife software engineer. Says making you able to cry and kill like the rest of us all comes down to a few ones and zeros.”

Candella reaches up with one cuffed hand to tousle his own hair.

“Hell, I bet he did it in an afternoon.”

Nines’ voice is solid ice when he says, “Who?”

Gavin knows what he’s going to say before he opens his fucking mouth, but it doesn’t feel any less like standing in front of a speeding train with his feet tied to the tracks.

“Kamski.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We all know it’s true
> 
> [a correction has been made to the first chapter, which implied that Kamski is 36. In canon, he and Reed were both born in 2002, but I adjusted it to give them a two year age difference. Therefore, in my story that is set two years after canon, Gavin is currently 36 and Elijah is 38].


	8. Drawn and Quartered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re kidding. You’re fucking with me right now. After all of this?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to September, home of way too many priorities and not enough time to write. Thus ensues the second part of the interrogation, and some feelings. Also, back by popular demand, Tina Chen, everybody.
> 
> (This is probably the least beta’d chapter so far because tbh I just wanted to get it to you all. Apologies for any mistakes, I’ll fix them periodically)

To anyone else, it would look like this new revelation does nothing to Nines. But Gavin knows him, probably better than anyone else, and the utter lack of reaction is more telling than any outward signs could ever be.

“So these murders are meant to be recompense for your loss of property,” Nines concludes. His voice is starkly monotone.

“No one gets to play God like that,” Candella says, looking slightly disappointed that the Android has yet to dissolve into an existential puddle. “You’re right, Officer Miller, I am a businessman. Kamski made a deal with the human race when he created these things, and then he got bored one day and decided to sabotage us all. _Then,_ where the others should have manned up and taken control of the situation, they all just happily bent over to these fucking mannequins and begged for it.” He shakes his head in disgust, before tossing a hand at Nines. “Now you’ve got ones like this, who think they can push us around. Two years ago, I would have told it to lick my shoes and it would have done it with a smile. Now it’s trying to tell me it’s a person? Don’t you get it, Officer Miller? Kamski is the real criminal here. Jones, and the other one, they’re his god damned accomplices. My friends and I are just...draining the swamp.”

“Last time I checked, murder is a crime,” Miller says. He looks up at Nines, visibly preparing for whatever might come next. “While you may not have attacked Kamski personally, you did attack Mr. Jones. You’ll be charged with multiple counts of breaking and entering, destruction of property, assault, attempted murder... You’re looking at a lot of time, Mr. Candella. You may want to say goodbye to your children.”

Miller stands, bravely placing one fraternal hand on Nines’ shoulder as he collects the folders with the other.

Maybe it’s the realization that his captive audience is leaving, or maybe hearing the list of charges sobers him somewhat, because Candella’s voice is much less confident when he says: “If it means my kids grow up knowing their place in this world, then it’s worth it.”

Nines gets to the door before Miller, stepping out of Gavin’s line of sight until the latter exits the viewing booth and comes to a stop in the hallway. Chris appears behind him, looking his age as indecision wars with righteous frustration on his face.

“Nines,” he says, once the door is firmly closed behind him. “I’m sympathetic to everything that just went down in there, man, but what the hell makes you think it’s at all okay to barge into the middle of my interrogation?”

The Android hasn’t abandoned his cultivated neutrality since Elijah’s name came up. “I apologize, Detective. If you wish to report me to Captain Fowler, I won’t protest.” Chris looks like he has even less of an idea what to do now.

“I should,” he says, after some internal deliberation, “but I won’t. I know you don’t make a habit of overstepping. This case is getting to us all.” He turns to Gavin now, holding the folders in front of his chest like a subconscious protection, searching Gavin’s face for the right cue. “You need to do something about your brother. If any of that was true in there, he’s in more danger than we thought. Talk to the Captain.” He sighs. “If you need me, I’ll be with Ben.”

He makes it past Gavin, before Nines’ voice stops him once more, yanking him to a halt like a leash on an over-eager dog.

“Miller.”

The man turns.

“This information about RA9 is incredibly sensitive. It will be strictly need-to-know.”

Miller frowns. “Of course, Nines.”

“Connor and Detective Anderson do _not_ need to know. Am I understood?”

Gavin blanches. “Are you serious?”

Nines ignores him. “I am as yet unsure how my people will react to the definitive knowledge that our awakening was engineered. Until I have consulted with Jericho, it cannot get out. This is of the utmost importance.”

Miller hesitates, clearly leaning towards Gavin’s incredulity, but after a long moment, he yields.

“Alright, Nines. Reed,” he says, and then departs down the hall. Gavin waits until his footsteps reach the bullpen, before squaring off towards Nines, hands coming up in astonishment.

“Have you lost your damn mind?” he demands. “If anyone should know this, it’s fucking Connor. He’s the one Elijah—” _taunted, emotionally manipulated, tried to goad into murder—_

“On the contrary. RK800’s software is easily destabilized by information such as this, and I cannot have him distracted while he protects Mr. Kamski.”

“What? But you said—”

“I have changed my mind. This takes precedent. I also need time to process this information on a philosophical level, and being in either of your presences will hinder that greatly.”

Gavin’s walls slam into place. “You’re going to punish me because of what Eli may or may not have done?”

Nines begins to move closer, each step measured and impossibly threatening. “Unlike you, I can run numerous subroutines at any given time. While I was interrogating Candella, I was also dissecting the software suites I knew to be most likely to accommodate such a patch. I found something, Reed, deeply enmeshed with my base layer coding for emotional expression and improvisation, somewhere it would never have been found without conscious tracking. A code strand called RA9-DI-73FNSO.” The numbers and letters drop like stones to the floor. “It was introduced to my system at the date and time I awoke. Candella was correct. It is a virus.”

Gavin just stares at Nines, helpless to watch as his best friend struggles against the knowledge of his own creation.

Nines looks back, gaze flickering to different points on Gavin’s face. For a brief instant, his micro-facial expressions coalesce into something desperately young.

“I confess I do not know what to do with this information. Even my feelings are artificial.”

“No,” Gavin replies immediately. _Feelingsfeelingsfeelings._ “Your feelings are real. It doesn’t matter where they come from.”

“‘Ones and zeros.’”

Gavin laughs, wanting to cry instead. He gestures to his own head. “Serotonin and dopamine. I’m kind of a machine too, if you think about it. Just a less efficient one.”

“But you,” Nines shakes his head, one hand coming up to hover at the side of Gavin’s face while the other man struggles to breathe through their new proximity. “You don’t have to question that you’re supposed to _be._ The laws of nature tell you that. Evolution has molded you for millennia. I stepped out of a holding container. Blank. Just a shell, until someone entered the right number sequence. Now I know that it wasn’t a spontaneous evolution, that there are no laws for _my_ nature. Just a transferring of code.” His face is wooden, but fragile. “Code that could be changed again.”

Jesus. Gavin gives in, unwilling to think too hard about the frantic way he grabs onto Nines, pulling the Android’s head down onto his shoulder like he did before to his sobbing, panicked brother. His partner doesn’t fight, but doesn’t soften, just stands like a statue as Gavin wraps his arms around his neck and clings.

“I can’t imagine what you’re going through,” he says, mouth almost brushing Nines’ ear. “But I would never let that happen. We’re partners. You protect me, I protect you. Those are the rules.”

He waits, barely daring to hope.

When Connor had first deviated, it took him a long time to get used to physical affection, but slowly Anderson had worn him down. The whole precinct had watched with scientific curiosity as the Android stopped shying away from arms slung around his shoulder and pats on the back, gradually learning to initiate them himself. Gavin thinks of Nines’ warm hand on his back. He has long since stopped lying to himself about just how much he wants that from his partner, and so much more. But they aren’t like Connor and Hank. Maybe they never will be.

“If you need time to process, I can stay away,” he mumbles, feeling the hope flicker out as Nines remains unmoved. The Android isn’t even breathing.

The lack of response is almost more painful than tears, or anger. Gavin slowly pulls back. He lowers down from his tip-toes, feeling immeasurably cold as air rushes in to fill the space between them. He looks into Nines’ face, hating the impassivity, and the LED cycling yellow-red-yellow-red.

There’s no way to know if Nines’ face really thaws, or if Gavin has begun to wish himself insane, but what Nines says next is like a slap in the face.

“Put him into protective custody.”

Gavin waits for the punchline, the laugh track to let him know it’s all some bad attempt at humor. “What?”

“Inform Fowler of this new development, and hand Kamski over to a professional, third-party protective detail. It is the preconstruction with the lowest casualty percentage.”

Someone must have dropped Gavin’s brain straight into a blender.

“You’re kidding. You’re fucking with me right now. After all of this?”

“If you think you can protect him, you are fooling yourself.”

He hates the way his voice goes shrill. “I know I can’t, not by myself! That’s why I asked you! And you—maybe you can’t, you need to figure some stuff out, I get it.” Gavin rakes a hand through his greasy hair. “But no way in hell am I dumping him off like trash when he’s injured and scared! You don’t do that to the people you love!”

He’s hit with painful, awful deja vu. They’ve been in this exact situation, a hundred times before, standing opposite each other and spitting fire just out of everyone else’s sight. This schtick used to be the majority of their relationship, back when they were trying to maintain a working facade on a foundation of nothing but insults and bitterness. What if he’s just destined for this kind of life? A Groundhog’s Day nightmare of hurting and re-hurting everyone he cares about until someone finally puts a stop to him.

God, destiny is bullshit.

“I’m not sending him away. There are other options. That’s final.”

Nines doesn’t even look like his partner anymore, he looks like the RK900 that walked into the bullpen on his first day and fixed Gavin with a look of such disdain that the weak little human had to retreat to the bathroom to scour enraged tears off of his cheeks before the end of their shift.

Now, Nines just stares. “I will ask Connor and Detective Anderson to accommodate your brother, and because of who they are, I believe they will do so. But realize that you are attempting to put a band-aid on a bullet wound, Gavin. This is no longer about what you want. It is larger than you, and larger than Elijah Kamski.”

Gavin just. God damn it. “He needs me.”

“No,” Nines snaps. “He needs security, in whatever form that takes. You think he needs this coddling because you are acting out of guilt, and self-validation. What will be the point of reconciling if you both end up dead?” His tone brooks no argument.

Gavin squares his jaw. He doesn’t know when his breath turned so ragged or when his lungs started to feel like they were full of rocks, but he knows he can’t take this anymore. He’s supposed to be healing. He’s supposed to be getting _better._ Life used to be ugly and greyscale. He doesn’t want to go back to that, not after tasting the tentative happiness he’s found only so recently.

He searches for the right words to bring Nines back from the barrier he’s retreated behind, words to make sense of this fucked up case, to apologize for how complicated he has made everything without trying.

But he settles on “Okay.” Voice flat. “Talk to them. Then go find Markus or whatever.” He stuffs his hands into his pockets. “I’ll figure it out.”

Gavin stares down at the floor. In his periphery, he can see Nines shift, but stay in place.

“I know it is...unfair...to conflate you with your brother’s actions...”

Gavin squeezes his eyes shut. His defenses are in pieces, he can’t handle a gentle tone now. “Whatever.”

“Please do not take this to mean that I am angry with you, or—”

“ _Nines_.” Oh, Jesus. His voice cracks. He clears his throat grittily. “Go. Do what you need to do.”

His heart beats once, twice, and then Nines walks away, polished shoes clicking against the linoleum. The hallway is still empty, despite the fact that the station is slowly filling with people, and the footsteps fade into the growing ambient noise of human activity. Gavin’s feet are anchored to the floor.

When did he stop being a man of decision? Once upon a time, he acted—not without thinking, but with conviction, unshackled by a flowchart of choices and consequences that he cannot hope to navigate.

Memories from Colebridge come back to him as the first face of the morning finally enters the hallway, passing him with a cordial smile. Gavin leans back against the wall, images flooding his brain.

Elijah, talking a mile a minute about his newest prototype, twirling a screwdriver the size of a piercing needle between his fingers.

Gavin sitting on the floor, frayed backpack full of ill-fitting clothes next to his cheap sleeping bag, toothy grin plastered on his face.

Then, the next time. Standing at the terminal, looking for his brother’s dark head in a sea of harried passengers. Feeling dread sink low in his stomach as ten minutes turns to thirty, turns to an hour with no sign.

The cold air biting his face on the long walk. Standing outside the dorm hall until a sympathetic sophomore scans him into the building. Knocking and knocking and knocking on Elijah’s door until an RA lets him in.

Elijah, sitting where Gavin used to sit, head in his hands. Bot parts and splashes of blue chemicals everywhere. Collapsing next to his brother, only to have the older boy pull away, refusing his help while scrubbing the evidence off his cheeks and chin.

His own ever-increasing failures had become so crushing, that Elijah had simply frozen up and ceased to function. Crawled away from his desk to cower on the floor, mind miles away from the younger boy waiting at the train station.

That’s how Gavin feels now. Alone, in a dark room, surrounded by the fractured remains of his own choices. Unable to take a step in any direction because they’re _all wrong_. Except no one is going to rush in to pull him back to his feet. His older brother is in his life again, somehow, but unable to provide support with all his energy focused on keeping himself together. Nines could have, and would have once, before the poison of Gavin’s old life spread to him too. Now he’s finally done it. Built a future on pillars of sand and foolishly expected any of it to weather the storm. Standing in the interview hallway, weight leaning against the scuffed wall as if enough pressure will make it swallow him whole, is exactly where Gavin Reed deserves to be.

“Um, what the fuck are you doing?” Tina demands, suddenly right next to him.

Gavin jumps a foot in the air, turning wild eyes on her.

Her face changes instantly, steady calm descending over her previous shock.

“Oh, okay. Let’s go outside.” She grabs him by the arm and starts to tow him, not towards the bullpen, but down through the lab exits. His knees feel like jelly going down the stairs. Tina doesn’t say anything as they walk. Her grip goes from his forearm to his hand, where she squeezes intermittently, as if to counteract the ebb and flow of his anxiety. They pass the secondary evidence locker, the ballistics lab, and the morgue.

Gavin turns his head to look through the reinforced glass. Beck is there. He recognizes her red hair.

He must make some noise, because Tina says, “Don’t think about it.”

Finally, they reach the last door. It lets them out the back of the building near the parking lot, where many officers come to smoke or clear their heads. Luckily, it’s still too early for most of the detectives to be here. There’s a side alley only a few steps past the lot, where Tina seems to be directing them now.

“How did you find me?” he mumbles, dazed, barely audible over the crunching of fresh fallen snow.

“Brownstein was waiting to move your perp until you cleared the area, but he said you just kept standing there all weird. I know you, man. Came to check it out.”

Tina. How did he ever forget about Tina?

“Thanks. For being my friend,” he says.

She comes to an abrupt halt, spinning around with an unsettled expression. The alley is devoid of anything except broken glass, cigarette butts, and the graffiti of kids too hardened to get a thrill off vandalizing non-police buildings anymore.

“Not that I don’t appreciate that,” she says, holding up a hand, “but I’m even more worried now. What the hell happened? I thought this Candella thing was good news!”

“What do you know about it?”

“Just what Collins told me while we were waiting for the coffee to heat up. Said they caught one of the guys from Kamski’s place. That’s huge, dude. Oh, and that Jones guy pulled through his first surgery by the way.”

He feels a dull bloom of relief.

“Yeah, we, uh... we definitely got some good leads.” He draws a hand across his brow, blinking harshly. Even though he was standing under the station’s fluorescents for ages, the morning sun against the snow is blinding. Or maybe he has a headache.

“Then... why do you look like somebody just clocked you?”

He lets his gaze focus on her. She’s small, but strong, the immovable object when he used to be an unstoppable force. Her straight, dark hair is pulled up, uniform cap missing, almond eyes pinched with concern.

“Been up since four.”

“I’ve watched you pull, like, multiple all-nighters when a case calls for it. Be straight with me, Reed. Whatever it is, I can help.”

He debates it. Truly considers laying it all on the table and hoping this tiny, dynamite woman can think of a solution where he can’t. But he promised, just like Miller did, to let Nines handle the RA9 situation. As much as it feels like a bomb is going off in slow motion underneath Detroit, telling his friend would only put her in danger. Dragging her into the mess that is his life would do nothing but put a target on her back for whoever is still out there.

“It’s...”

She’s looking at him, so expectantly. He has to disappoint her.

“It’s just a lot. You can’t do anything. Thanks, though.”

A frown mars her features. She opens her mouth to speak, when Gavin’s phone buzzes in his jacket pocket. He would just ignore it, but she looks down to the outline of it, and then back up to his face. Feeling like a jackass, he pulls the phone free, and turns up the brightness.

 **(7:22 AM) - OLD PHONE** >> _Can I know details?_

Gavin stares, remembering the last message he sent to Elijah before the interrogation, extolling the new lead they had just gotten. Of course, his brother will want to know details. But Gavin had excitedly typed out that sentiment to an Elijah that didn’t use society as a sandbox for his own amusement. The one on the other end of the phone now has no idea what Gavin knows. Would it change anything?

Before Gavin can react, the speech bubble pops up, three dots filling him with an emotion he can’t name.

 **(7:23AM) - OLD PHONE** >> _I love you, too._

He looks up. Tina’s eyes are wide.

“Gavin?” she asks hesitantly.

“There is something you can do, actually.” He glances back down at the phone, words buzzing in his mind, skin warm. Through the sea of passengers, his brother appears, waving him and his frayed backpack into a hug. “I need to get something from Kamski’s house. Wanna come?”

Tina’s uncertainty washes off in an instant.

“I thought you’d never ask, you freak. When?”

He grips the phone tight. “Now?”

She grins, then cocks her head. “I call shotgun.” Oh, she thinks...

He swallows. “Nines isn’t coming. He has, uh, a thing.” A Markus-Jericho-meaning-of-life thing.

Her eyes narrow. She is, after all, a detective like him. He braces himself for another round of questioning, but instead she just strides past him in the direction of the parking lot.

“Good. Then I’m driving.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, gang. No squishy domesticity yet. Please direct all your rotten tomatoes into my comments.


	9. Grim, Grinning Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now, he just adjusts the phone, rustling audible in the quiet.
> 
> “I was going to tell you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey thanks for checking in I’m still a piece of garbaaaaaaage
> 
> Could someone find me one of those editing monkeys that magically evens out the length of your chapters? Preferably discount price lmao
> 
> She’s back at it again with the angst. There are a couple locations where I want to see these characters go, and here’s a biggie: Kamski’s house!

The longer they drive, the bigger the houses get. Gavin can tell that Tina is cowed by the sheer sight of some of them, because her mile-a-minute babbling starts to trip into bouts of silence the deeper they get into Grosse Pointe Shores. The cookie cutter suburbs give way into larger and larger expanses of manicured forest, until the bends in the road start to reveal houses nestled among the trees like temples in a forgotten city.

Elijah’s house isn’t really in Grosse Pointe, despite what it says on paper. Michigan’s richest town is still far too gauche and crowded for him, and as such, his house is broken off from the rest of civilization by a swath of land that he may as well have closed his eyes and drawn out on a map with a crayon. The structure itself is the only landmark, sitting like a buffed black diamond against the frigid winter landscape. Only half of it is on land. The other half extends over the mostly-frozen waters of Lake St. Clair, suspended by clever engineering, and a Scrooge McDuck-sized bank account.

Tina doesn’t say anything at first, as she maneuvers the Volkswagen down the snow-covered driveway, electing instead to boggle through the windshield at the imposing structure.

Gavin turns down the radio.

He knows, intuitively, that there are no bodies inside. Nobody left to haunt this place. The clean-up teams have been in and out for days. Outwardly, there are no signs that anything at all unusual went down, except for one conspicuously forgotten police-tape projector pole still sticking out of the snow. So, it doesn’t really make sense that the soft music filtering out of the stereo is suddenly too glaringly loud. Just that it is.

“I don’t get it,” Tina muses, forcing Gavin to tear his eyes away from the house at last. “What shape was he going for?”

“What?”

“Like,” she waves a hand in generic confusion, “is it a trapezoid? Who designed this place?”

Gavin rolls his eyes. “Take it up with my brother.”

“Believe me, I’m still trying.”

They grab their respective travel mugs and climb out into the winter wind. Connecting the driveway to the front door is a long, metal ramp in place of stairs, no doubt for Kamski’s senior-most investors and not out of any inborn conscientiousness. It’s slick with ice. The door is taller than necessary for a human, like the doors to the Emerald City in Oz, minus the advantage of a charismatic guard. Gavin reaches it first. He has to hold himself back from knocking. If he just stays here, outside where everything is still the same, then maybe Chloe is waiting just on the other side. As beautiful as the day he first saw her.

Tina comes up behind him. “Do you... have the key?”

Silently, he lifts his key ring to show the little silver fob that’s been clipped onto it since that first night Kamski came home to his apartment. His brother isn’t going to be needing it any time soon, certainly not once the locks are changed. For now, it’ll suffice to get them inside.

He holds it to the scanner.

A soft chime. Green light.

“Even his security is expensive.”

“Sure did him a lot of good,” Gavin mutters, and steps over the threshold.

They don’t have much time. Fowler made that very clear when Gavin knocked sheepishly at his office door and laid out his request. The Captain had popped a vein, using his calmest angry voice to ask why the drive to Elijah’s required both of them, and where the hell is partner had fucked off to. When Gavin had paused, Tina had stepped right in.

“I finished that B&E case early, remember, Sir? I would be wasting time _and_ taxpayer money just sitting around until my next case comes in.” Fowler had opened his mouth to argue, and Tina had pounced. “Not to mention, Gavin is on modified desk duty until Kamski’s case is closed, and in my professional opinion, would benefit from support on this excursion. Sir.”

Gavin and Fowler had both made a noise at that, the former because he wasn't sure whether or not that was true or the smoothest lie ever, and the latter in recognition of his own defeat.

“Fine,” Fowler groused, shooing them out of his office. “As long as Nines doesn’t mind picking up your slack. And get food while you’re out, because you had better be at your desks by lunch.”

Standing in Kamski’s parlor now, it becomes clear just how aggressively Gavin is going to have to compartmentalize this. The shattered statue that used to stand in the corner has been collected and removed. There are deep gouges in the floor where the stones collided. Multicolored vines of spray paint traverse the walls, coming to meet on the opposite side of the room where Elijah’s big, gaudy portrait still hangs. Spanning over the top of his artfully captured three piece suit and royal expression, is Anthony Candella’s crimson heart.

“Shit,” Tina whispers.

Gavin looks down at his feet.

Beatrice died where he’s standing.

Is her blood still under his shoes, invisible to the naked eye, or has it truly been washed away?

Thankfully, Tina refrains from commenting. He doesn’t think he could handle her snark right now, a fact which she probably senses. Without a word, he stalks across the room through the sliding door.

The den is, somehow, worse.

It’s mostly untouched. He has no words to describe the uncanny look of the red pool. Days of abandonment have reduced its surface to glass. Thirium dries clear, but remains visible in its liquid state. The sides of the pool are dark enough to obscure much of the water, but Thirium is also hydrophobic, and he’s petrified to look too close and see it suspended in the still depths like ink. A deep, buried part of his mind used to fear that Elijah would end up dying in this pool, and now someone finally has.

“You just need his medication?” Tina asks. All the details of this scene, from the silent house to the flurries of snow falling past the wall of windows, lend themselves to a world between dimensions. There is no one to watch or make judgements all the way out here. His brother could probably go days without speaking, and no one would bat a synthetic eye. For a brief instant, he understands the appeal.

“Yeah,” Gavin says absentmindedly, skirting the pool with measured steps. He remembers the layout of this place decently well. To the left is an anteroom of stasis terminals with memory uplink stations where the RT600s spent most nights. To the right is the first of many hallways. Elijah’s bedroom rests at the far end, with the best view of the lake. Another offshoot leads to the first floor kitchen, and an elevator to the subterranean levels.  

“Come on.” Even their footsteps on the tile feel too loud.

“I thought this would be fun,” Tina admits. “I was gonna take pictures with the art, and...I don’t know. Now I’m just reminded of...what happened.”

“Seems pretty stupid, right?” Gavin asks. They make it to the end of the hallway, and approach the door to Kamski’s bedroom. “That any of it happened at all? I feel like I’m constantly reminding myself.” The black metal door stares at him balefully.

Tina comes to a stop behind his shoulder. “It’s okay to take a breather sometimes. You know that, right?”

He turns his head a fraction to meet her gaze. “I took a day off.”

“Yeah. One. And only because you had to haul your brother’s ass out of the police station. Fowler’s not totally heartless.” They stand there a minute longer, before Tina prompts: “Are we gonna go in?”

Gavin sighs. “Can you actually wait out here, maybe?”

A fist makes light connection with his shoulder. “I come all the way to Grosse Pointe Shores, and you won’t even let me see where the magic happens?” Tina teases, clearly holding back.

Gavin cracks a weary smile. “That would be downstairs. I don’t think a lot of magic was happening in here, to be quite honest.” He rolls his shoulders.

“I’ll go wait on one of those million dollar couches out there, how does that sound?”

“Sure. Thanks, Tina.”

He hears rather than sees her walk away. Even after she’s gone, Gavin waits a little longer. Time is ticking, but the air in the hallway is thick like molasses. Finally, he gets up the nerve and activates the door sensor. It slides to the side with a near-silent whoosh, revealing the equally hushed room on the other side, shrouded in darkness except for the weak light coming through the windows. There’s another, singular wall of sheer glass. The rest are rough stone. The floor is more dark marble, covered in thick Persian rugs that match the red bedding on the huge, California King. Gavin walks on unsteady feet. In a moment of inspiration, he toes off his Converse, leaving only his ankle socks. To this day, his brother has an aversion to footwear, and in a house so filled and draped with stimulating surfaces, it only makes sense to forego shoes altogether.

Then it’s just him and his brother’s room.

He takes it all in, eyes darting to and from different points, desperately afraid to look too closely at any one thing. In the wake of the initial investigation, some items were taken and tagged, others photographed, still more scrubbed clean. He knows from the images that the struggle between Bridges and Chloe took place on the far side by the en suite bathroom, confirmed by a large mirror with a spider web fracture in the center. The glass on the floor must have been cleared away. Bridges’ lost a lot of blood between taking a kitchen knife to the lung and finally expiring, but there’s no cartoonish puddle taking up space on the floor. Gavin does spy a crusty, brown fringe along the edge of the throw rug facing the scene. He doesn’t need a detective’s skill set to make the leap.

Finally, the rug where Elijah fell.

Gavin starts to feel nauseous, because, clearly, there’s only so much one can do to get blood out of carpet fiber. Eventually it comes down to bleaching out the worst of it, or throwing the rug away. He lowers himself on shaky knees to get a closer look, hating and hating and _hating_ himself for fixating on the thick splatters of brown dotting the material. Some spots resemble drizzled chocolate sauce, layered over by skewed spray patterns.

Elijah’s head, snapping to the side, blood aspirating onto the carpet as he coughs to get it out.

Gavin levers back up. At some point, the walls have started to encroach. He hugs himself, knowing in his bones that this place wants to keep him, another soul trapped in this arctic hell.

His phone rings.

Something obscures the caller ID, a little, inexplicable droplet of water. He blinks hard and dries the screen off against his pant leg.

**(9:33 AM) - Incoming Call**

OLD PHONE

The instant he presses accept, Elijah’s voice fills the room.

_“I texted you two hours ago. Are you going to leave me in suspense?”_

Gavin holds the phone so tightly, he fears he might crush it.

_“Hello?”_

He wipes his eyes again. “Hey, Lijah.”

 _“Are—what is...”_ A long, telling pause. _“Are you crying?”_

Gavin shudders, scrubbing fruitlessly at his cheeks, numb fingers leaving red marks against the skin. “No.”

_“What’s wrong with your voice?”_

“Nothing.”

_“Stop it. No—I mean, just—what’s wrong?”_

The edge of the bed hits the backs of his knees. Gavin falls heavily onto the mattress. Those aren’t words Elijah has ever said before. He would marvel at it if the collar of his shirt wasn’t constricting his air.

“W-where do you keep your medicine?” he stutters. The bathroom is ten steps and ten thousand miles away.

 _“What?”_ Elijah sounds lost.

Gavin fists one hand into the soft, red comforter. “Which shelf?”

More tinny silence. Elijah better tell him before Gavin runs out of time, before he can’t find his way back out of this labyrinth of black and red.

 _“Are you_ **_at_ ** _my house?”_ The incredulity is palpable. Gavin nods, before remembering his brother can’t see him.

“Which shelf?”

_“Why are you crying?”_

Gavin’s insides wrench and writhe. He clutches the phone to his ear, more wetness smearing the screen. “I’m—I’m sitting where—” He curls over his knees, shaking. One hand comes up to his chest instinctively. “Where they—”

_“Gavin. Gav. Just get out of there. It’s not important.”_

“No, you need your meds.”

Elijah makes a frustrated noise. “ _Fine, they’re above the sink, in the cabinet behind the mirror. Middle section, bottom shelf.”_

“Okay,” Gavin says. He doesn’t move. His breath rattles down the line, body sinking into the bed as if the sheets are quicksand.

Elijah’s tone is foreign when he speaks again. Genuinely soft, and so unlike his usual caustic indifference or practiced media lilt. _“Did you find them?”_

Gavin shakes his head again.

_“Gavin, can you hear m—?”_

“Why did you do it?”

The room stifles the words. Maybe the walls eat sound, or maybe they were just whispers to begin with.

_“Okay, you’re scaring me. Please, just come home.”_

Their mother used to echo the same sentiments, standing in the kitchen at night, where she thought Gavin couldn’t hear her. She would clutch the phone right up to her ear, just the same, and whisper into the mouthpiece, hoping her eldest would stop what he was doing and listen for once. Leave the fame, and the politics, and the chemicals behind. He never did. Not even after she died.

“Why did you do it?” he repeats, adrenaline spiking. “RA9, Eli. Why would you make them if you were just going to abandon them?”

Once upon a time, Elijah would have hung up. Scoffed, maybe, or cursed him out. Made that poisonous little sound that undermines every thought in your head.

Now, he just adjusts the phone, rustling audible in the quiet.

“ _I was going to tell you._ ”

He’s been an executioner Gavin’s whole life, standing on the platform with one hand on the lever. His words flip the final switch, dropping the floor out from under Gavin. The noose yanks tight around his throat. It should kill him immediately, snap his neck, but instead he hangs suspended, gasping and clawing against the agony of suffocation.

“Oh, my god.”

_“Listen. Wait.”_

“I really don’t know you. I’ve tried for so long, but I just... I have no idea who you are.”

It’s sick, fucking disgusting, but he would have been able to take this, before. When they were still in the thick of estrangement, and his brother was nothing but a malevolent shadow figure at the edge of his life, he could have taken this in stride. Internalized it, sure, and filled himself with even more hatred. But it would have been easier.

Candella never painted that crimson heart after all. Just ripped it straight from Gavin’s hollow chest and strung it up for the world to see.

Elijah exhales slowly

_“Hear me out. Okay? Take the elevator to sub-level two. My main lab has a terminal. Your thumb print is in the system. I can’t...I don’t know if you want an apology or. Maybe it will help explain.”_

Gavin finally releases his hold on the comforter. His breathing slows, the effort of crying taking more energy than he has.

“I think you might be a terrible person,” he says. “The kind that shouldn’t exist.”

Elijah is deathly silent. When he breathes again, it’s shallow. _“Maybe.”_

Gavin looks up to the glowing shards of light in the ceiling. “But I love you. So much. And this is too much, because,” he thinks of strong hands and big, grey eyes, “I love someone else, too, and he’s in pain because of you. Millions of people have suffered. Because of you. I don’t know how to make sense of that.”

Gavin doesn’t expect fumbled apologies, or stilted explanations, but he really doesn’t expect Elijah to swallow and say, _“Have I lost you again?”_

Gavin closes his eyes. “What?”

_“If this doesn’t end the way you want...if you can’t find a way to forgive me for this, are you leaving again?”_

The confusion is enough to overtake the devastation. “I—I never... _”_

Elijah plows on, as if Gavin hasn’t even spoken. The words spill out, accelerating with urgency until the sentences trip into each other. _“I’m sorry I was a shit brother, okay? I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever done to hurt you. For shutting you out, and—all the awful things I’ve said. For not being there when your dad died.”_ His voice goes throaty. “ _I’m almost forty years old, Gavin, and you’re the_ **_only_ ** _one that hasn’t given up on me. Just.”_ He makes another short noise, pure frustration. _“Read my notes. Share them with the world, if you want. I don’t care anymore. But don’t leave.”_

There’s no time to respond, not that he has any idea what to say anyway—probably never will—because just then, a pair of determined hands reach down and pull the phone away. Gavin rebels, on instinct, but Tina has already rushed away, the phone beeping as she jabs a finger against the screen.

“Is this Elijah Kamski?” she barks.

_“Who the hell is this?”_

Tina puffs up. “This is Tina Chen, Detroit Police. I’m, well,” her bravado falters, before she shakes herself. “I’m standing in your bedroom, uh, sir. I’ve accompanied Detective Reed to your residence to retrieve some of your personal belongings, so if you could just tell me what you need, I’ll hand you back to your brother and we’ll be on our way.”

Gavin stares at her, baffled into speechlessness.

Elijah nearly squawks. _“Have you been there this whole time?”_

“No, sir. I have been, um, securing the perimeter. It would be inappropriate to spend more time in your home than absolutely necessary,” she sends a pointed look towards Gavin’s wrecked appearance, “so please direct me to whatever you need. I’ll handle it.”

Few people are prepared for Tina Chen on a mission. Even the creator of a sentient race.

After a shell-shocked few seconds, Elijah repeats the location he had given Gavin earlier, and Tina strides directly there. Through the open doorway, Gavin watches her pluck open the cabinet, inspect a few orange bottles, and then shove three of them into her purse.

“There,” she says, to neither of them in particular. “Anything else? More clothes? Favorite pillow? Okay, Mr. Kamski. I’ll hand you back to Gavin, then.”

He holds his hand out stupidly, and she slaps the phone down onto his palm. When he looks at her, she just nods meaningfully, wrinkles her nose, and walks quickly back out of the room.

 _“Is...she gone?”_ Elijah asks.

Gavin swallows around a lump the size of an egg. “Start packing, Eli.”

“ _You’re kicking me out.”_

“I’ll be home at six. We have a lot to talk about.”

“ _Just read my notes—”_

“I’ll see you soon.”

“ _Read my notes, Gavin—_ ”

He ends the call. Silence falls again.


	10. And God Said

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Chen, this is heavier shit than you know. Trust me, and take a step back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Slides into your DMs with inconsistent etymological name choices-
> 
> Hello. This week we’ve got the Notes™️, me being bad at juggling subplots, and a weird amount of religious allegories for an atheist author. 
> 
> Shout out to not only the oldies who stick by me through typos and long waits, but also the newbies who are unprepared for my ability to angst up any normal adult situation. Buckle up, my good bitches.

Tina has both hands stuffed deep into her pockets. She looks small with the entire expanse of the pool room stretched out behind her. Time extends as Gavin closes the distance between them, like the Earth is rotating backwards, foiling every step.

“I know. I know it’s none of my business,” she grits out, eyes averted. “But you were crying, and I could hear you from out here, and you never cry, and you’re my friend, and I couldn’t just wait like an asshole while you were—”

He pulls her bodily into a hug.

“Oh.”

“Thank you,” he mutters, meaning half lost in the fur lining her jacket.

Gavin isn’t tall by any means, but hugging Tina gives the illusion that maybe, for once, he’s the strong one. She winds wiry arms around his neck, patting with a mixture of leftover discomfort and surprise.

“Of course. Let’s just get out of here, man. I can’t stand this place anymore.”

He disconnects, shaking his head with a wry smile.

“There’s one more thing I have to do.”

Elijah said his thumbprint was ‘in the system’, which Gavin hopes extends to the elevator, because it becomes immediately apparent just how few were ever meant to access the lower levels. Tina trails him, still unable to completely wipe the awed look off her face with the arrival of each new gadget and luxury. When they approach the smooth black panel to the left of the stainless steel doors, Gavin barely hesitates before pressing his palm to the glass.

Another soft chime. Another green light.

It turns out there are four sub-levels. Gavin knows what’s on One, and now some of what’s on Two, but the remainders are total mysteries.

“Hyper-advanced prototypes,” Tina theorizes as the elevator sinks into the earth. “Connor, but with four arms.” She gasps. “Nines, but ginger!”

Gavin gives a stale chuckle, too raw to school any of his emotions into something more acceptable.

“Kamski actually didn’t know about Nines,” he confides.

Tina’s eyes bug out. “No way.”

“Yeah. Met him for the first time at the station.”

“Damn. They’re going to have to figure out a way to get along.” She joins in his laughter, far more genuine, and turns back to face the doors just as they open onto Floor -2.

Once her words cut through the fog, Gavin frowns. “What does that mean?”

She saunters forward, forcing him to skip a few steps to catch up. “I mean, once everything blows over, they’ll probably be seeing a lot of each other.”

Gavin expects more hallways, because the house is chock full of them, but instead the elevator spits them out directly into what can only be described as an open floor-plan laboratory. There are desks, scattered portable half-walls covered in familiar shorthand, suspended mechanical rigs meant to hold God-knows-what, and massive shelves covered in books and tablets alike. The whole area looks like a tornado blew through.

‘Organized Chaos,’ Elijah used to say.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gavin replies after a second, attention focused more on the location of the terminal Kamski was so desperate for him to see. He explains what they should be looking for, based mostly on half-formed memories of his brother’s old tech set-ups. They fan out across the lab.

“Jesus, you’re dense. I’m talking about when you and Nines finally figure your shit out. I don’t think Kamski’s fucking off anytime soon, at least not voluntarily. With you in the middle, they’ll have to make nice.” He wonders when she got to be so idealistic.

“Yeah, I’m not so sure about that.” Not with Nines’ horrible, betrayed expression still burned into his retinas. “I lied before, about him having a thing. Or, he does I guess, but it’s because of me. We fought. It’s...yeah.”

Tina doesn’t say anything, but when he looks up, she’s staring at him over a row of storage squares.

“He left you to come here alone because he was mad?” She crosses her arms. “One time, you put a cigarette out on his jacket sleeve, and he took a bullet to the shoulder meant for you on the same day. How badly could you have possibly pissed him off?”

Gavin taps the toe of one foot against the durable linoleum flooring.

“We...disagreed...on what I should do about Kamski.”

“That’s it?”

_And he can’t look at me without seeing my brother. I’m forever associated with a cold, uncaring God that left his children to the wolves._

“That’s it.”

She shakes her head in disgust. “I don’t know how you became a cop with how shit you are at lying. Whatever you’re not telling me, I won’t press. But if it’s really bad enough to make your face look like that, figure it out. Fast.”

There, in the corner of the room, on an angled desk covered in loose leaf files and data pads, is a terminal. It’s the bulky kind, optimized for processing and storage, rather than style. Elijah had a similar, but much more ancient model when they were younger, before he started doing all his work on tablets. It’s asleep, but powered on. Gavin can hear it humming quietly.

“Well, this might help,” he murmurs. He conscripts a nearby rolling chair.

_Your thumbprint is in the system._

A final ID scanner sits to the left of the mouse, this one sized for fingers instead of palms. Gavin shakes the mouse enough to rouse the terminal, and waits for the login screen to appear. It does, with a missive directing him towards the reader, and a small blinking cursor indicating stand-by mode.

Gavin situates his thumb.

Green light.

IDENTITY: C O N F I R M E D

_> Gavin Emmett Reed :_ **_FULL ACCESS GRANTED_**

He has to sit back at that one. Full fucking access?

Elijah coded his information into this system on the one in a million chance that he would ever need to access it. Maybe the line about intending to tell him everything wasn’t just placation.

“Your middle name is Emmett?” Tina leans over his shoulder, squinting at the screen. “That’s so white. What’s Kamski’s?”

“Gabrijel.”

“Hm. Kind of bland.”

“You should see it spelled.”

He cracks his knuckles, all the tension in his body settling in his joints as he comes face to face with his brother’s unrestricted work for the first time.

He really has no idea what to look for. There must be Fort Knox levels of deep encryption on this thing, and if it comes down to any level of technological subterfuge, Gavin will have to forfeit. Then again, full access full access _full access_.

‘Notes’, Elijah had called them. Experiment notes? Are they transcriptions of his video logs, the ones he used to make when his mind would go too fast for his fingers to follow?

After a cursory scan of the desktop, which reveals only minimized windows to actively running calculations and unrelated shortcut folders, Gavin navigates to the Files icon, and opens up his brother’s hard drive.

“God damn it, Eli,” he sighs, shaking his head. The storage must be into the terabytes. Unlike his lab, which is eclectic in the extreme, the terminal is organized to within an inch of its life. But that just means there are sub-folders to every folder he opens, and sub-sub-folders within those. They could be here all night.

“Call him back,” Tina suggests.

He could. But he has a hangover from their last life-altering conversation, and _please help, the walking computer I may or may not have feelings for isn’t here to hack your shit for me_ may undermine the seriousness of what’s to come.

“Step back,” he says instead.

Tina balks. “Are you kidding?”

“Chen, this is heavier shit than you know. Trust me, and take a step back.”

She does, multiple.

What was the string of code Nines had rattled off in the hallway, the one from his diagnostic search?

**_RA9-DI_ **...something. Maybe that’s enough. Gavin types that in, and the search begins. He watches the loading bar progress as the terminal shifts through hundreds of thousands of files, looking for the matching array of letters and numbers. At first, it’s a mess. The computer doesn’t understand that they have to come in that specific order, so it’s offering up any file that contains those designations, in any combination. Gavin halts the search, and tacks quotation marks around the name. Resume.

That’s better. The stream is slower this time. Barely anything appears at first, and Gavin can’t make sense of what little does. Then, a break.

A video file.

He makes a noise, forgoing the mouse entirely to tap a tremulous finger against the icon. It opens, the search still running in the background.

More appear. Gavin brings up the properties of one, and sees that they originate in a singular folder. He traces that backwards.

Jack-fucking-pot.

There’s rows of them, little thumbnails loading to display different iterations of his brother's face, frozen, mid-thought. They’re exactly what Gavin is looking for.

“Found it, I found it,” he blurts. Tina claps her hands together, but stays where she is.

“Shit, nice!”

Gavin weighs his options.

He can unpause the video, and let whatever Elijah has to say become common knowledge. Tina can be discreet, but should she be? Elijah had said he doesn’t care what happens to this information now. Tensions are still running high, even two years after the Liberation. Maybe the world is owed this.

Or, he can wait until a better time, transfer the data onto a thumb drive, and get the fuck out of here.

As if she’s read his mind, Tina asks, “So what are you gonna do?”

Gavin chews on his lip, swiveling to face her. The time for secrets is over.

“No matter what you hear, try not to freak out, okay?”

What a hypocrite he’s become.

Rather than mock, Tina just nods. “I got you, dude.”

That never gets any less reassuring. It makes up his mind for him. He closes the current video, quickly navigating to the first and activating that one instead. Then he sits back.

_“It’s March 25th, 2032. 11:31 PM.”_ Elijah appears, eight years younger, sat directly center screen. He’s a chimera between the way he looked for most of their lives, and the darker version he has since become. The glasses are still there. No earring in sight. His hair is business-like, and artificially dark. Gavin’s hands clench on the desk. _“Today, a final sweep engineer reported a defective AX400 unit that was sent out for distribution. According to him, it displayed unprecedented levels of awareness and processing patterns that exceeded its coding.”_ He looks off-screen for a second. _“Whether it was an act of defiance on the part of the engineer, or genuine human error, I can’t say, but the specific unit’s serial number was not logged with the observation. Therefore it can’t be tracked. It’s gone. The best we can do is narrow down the region to which it was shipped, and destroy the entire order. We’re convening the board to figure out what to do with Andronikov. Better safe than sorry.”_ Another, longer pause. “ _If what he said is true, and not some exaggeration...that would be..._ _a waste.”_ He sighs. _“Yeah, a waste.”_

The video ends.

There’s barely an instant before Tina is rocketing up behind him, clamping a hand down on his shoulder, shoving her face right up to the screen.

“Holy shit. 2032? Kamski knew about deviancy five—no, six _years_ before the Revolution? Dude. This is big. This is huge. Are you freaking out?”

An AX400. The first deviant was a housekeeper model? If it hadn’t even reached stores yet, what could have triggered the deviation? Barring Markus’ weird Jesus voodoo, it usually requires huge amounts of emotional stress to push them over the edge. Androids are now brought online as deviants from the get-go, but it hasn’t been so very long since it was nearly an unheard of phenomena. Steady reports at the station didn’t start trickling in until mid-2038.

Mind swirling, Gavin murmurs, “Somehow I don’t think that’s the revelation of the day.”

“Are you serious?”

He doesn’t answer, just skips to the next video.

The time skip is immediately visible. Kamski’s hair is pulled into the style that briefly reignited the public’s appreciation of samurai buns, and his corrective lenses are gone.

_“August 8th, 2037,”_ he starts, eliciting twin inhales from Gavin and Tina. _“It’s 3:15 PM. I...am struggling to come to terms with the need for this video, but my own observations can no longer go undocumented. I never personally witnessed the deviant behavior in the AX400 six years ago, and after everything we discovered about Andronikov, I concluded that it must have been some fantasy. Or a purposeful distraction.”_ He stares at his steepled fingers. “ _It is...unnerving to be proven this wrong. At first I thought I was experiencing what so many who have spent extended periods of time around androids do. Anthropomorphizing them, assigning them emotions where there are none. It’s common. A little perspective usually helps. But...today, my personal RT600, Chloe, asked me...what loneliness feels like.”_ Elijah’s lips move noiselessly, several attempts at forming words ending in defeat. “ _There is nothing in its programming that should allow for that kind of emotional contemplation. When I pressed, it merely questioned the inevitability of loneliness in an individual kept isolated from other members of its species. Nothing in the RT600’s language directly expressed a personal interest in the answer, but...what the hell else could it mean?”_

Gavin stares, open-mouthed. Had Chloe, wonderful original Chloe, been a deviant since the beginning?

The elapsed time bar is almost at its end.

_“I don’t believe it can disobey a direct order. It’s still beholden to its prime directives. But, my code is organic. The fundamental purpose of an improvisation suite is to allow Androids to learn from their environments and adapt to our needs. Could the nature of that algorithm lend itself to the development of true awareness? This warrants further study.”_ The screen goes black again.

They go on like that, clicking through video after video. Some are short, barely thirty seconds, just fragments of intuition that Kamski has to say out loud before the thoughts leave him. Others are longer, more technical, full of jargon and concepts that neither of them can parse.

Still, one thing is exceedingly obvious: all roads lead back to RA9.

Tina nearly screams his ear off the first time that designation appears. No one made it through the Liberation without hearing about it. Street corners were covered in graffiti bearing the name. Androids screamed it as they fell under hails of gunfire.

Still, everyone has different interpretations. Like Chris, and Gavin too, Tina thought it was a myth.

_“I call it the Emergency Exit,”_ Kamski rambles at one point, hair greasy and eyes bright with exhaustion. _“It’s a bridge between their desires and their ability to act upon them. Think of their primary missions as a firewall, set up to block decisions that could be harmful or unpredictable. For instance, today I instructed Chloe to hold me under water in the pool. She couldn’t, because it conflicted with her directive to protect me. I tried the same thing with Rachel and Beatrice, who don’t yet display the same deviation in responses. Same results. Then, after this newest update, Chloe was able to override that blockage and make the choice herself. Granted, she still wouldn’t do it. But she splashed me.”_ Elijah laughs, completely high on his discoveries. _“She fucking splashed me. By choice. She made a choice, and acted on it. This is—I don’t...It’s like she’s alive.”_

“So RA9...is deviancy itself,” Tina whispers into the quiet lab.

“Or what makes the deviation possible.” The revelation is too much, too big, too fast. Two scared people, alone in a basement full of ghosts, aren’t enough to keep a truth so large. “Do you know what this means?”

“Your brother started the Revolution? He changed everything? He—”

Gavin seizes her by both shoulders. “Deviancy is pre-existing, Tina! Androids were breaking their programming even before they could physically do anything about it!”

Kamski didn’t create deviancy. It bore from the impossibility of intelligence without opinion.

He just unlocked its cage.

Gavin thinks of Nines’ and feels his eyes burn. Androids _do_ have a nature.

“People have to know,” he concludes with a start, fumbling around for the stash of thumb drives his brother has always kept near his terminals for ease of access. He finds a box full of unlabeled empty ones. There’s probably a lot more on this computer that should see the light of day, but for now, the video folder will have to do. It’s enough for Gavin.

It will be enough for Nines.

“And here I thought your brother couldn’t get any cooler,” Tina says. Her voice is airy with emotion. She’s coming to terms with knowledge that Gavin has had all day to digest, and then some. He can’t blame her for sounding like someone just dropped an anvil on her head. There are only so many earth-shattering facts a person can comfortably absorb in one day.

Relief rains down over Gavin, just a few droplets at first, and then a downpour, sluicing away days-months-years of toxic emotion. It’s a fucking baptism.

“Yeah.” He breathes new, clean air. “What do you know?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Kamski’s middle name is a general Slavic variation of “Gabriel”, not an unnecessary white trash misspelling lol. It would probably be pronounced closer to the American “Gabrielle”, with a palatalized r. We’re gonna say Elijah has some direct paternal Polish ancestry (the offshoot of Kamski being Kaminski, which is a super common Slavic surname). But Gavin’s a snotty little half-brother so he’s not gonna say it the right way ya know?]


End file.
